Disappointing!

This book purports to tell of two road trips made throughout the USA by the author in the late 1980’s that, combined, touched 38 states and covered some 14 000 miles. The style is personal and witty but certainly antedates the political correctness to which today’s public is accustomed. Indeed, the author is very critical of most places seen and, it must be added, of his own family and of himself. Though this approach is certainly intended to be amusing, many may perceive it over time to become tiresome.

There are three fundamental flaws:

• Oftentimes, the circuit followed seems to be improvised on the way; contrary to what is claimed, tourist spots are not avoided as, among many others, Williamsburg, Mount Vernon, the Lincoln Memorial and Cooperstown are visited; perhaps because notetaking was not perfectly rigorous, there are holes in the narrative: for instance, the 5-hour bus trip to New York City from Pennsylvania where the car is left is described in detail but not the return.
• The context is now dated: the trip was made before smart phones existed, which means that the author frequently gets lost and that he often discovers that a given tourist site is closed for the day or overly expensive; the general observations that are made are no doubt partly obsolete as well.
• The author is always on the go and clearly exhausted with driving at many points. He does not seem to realize that the places most enjoyed on a trip are those where the most time is spent (and not necessarily the reverse).

Overall, this work will be of interest mainly for those interested in urban development and how its quality regressed in America between the author’s childhood in the 1950’s and his trip thirty years later.

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Bill Bryson does it again!

I really enjoy Bryson's books. The humour, the tangents, the pointed but accurate observations. Nothing not to like. Satisfying and recommendable listen.

The narration by William Roberts is excellent.

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Interesting content.

Didn’t finish the book, the sarcastic negativity made it difficult to finish for me. I did enjoy the idea of the book.

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Bit of an A-hole

I’ve read most of Mr. Brysons books years ago. And I remember them with such pleasure, but going back and listening to this book I noticed a streak of smug arrogance in his writing and views on the individual. I still love the book, just surprised that I found Bill to be a little bit of an A - hole.

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Again and again

I have listened to this book about 4 times now and it never gets old.

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Love Bill Bryson’s writing.

Fun book! The reality of traveling through the States blows away the clouds of romantic notions. Bill has saved me so much time and money.

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Dated and not as good as later works.

When I moved to the U.K. I had enjoyed Bill Bryson's "Notes From a Small Island". I guess it had been written about 4 years before. This made me pick up "The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America".

This book is ostensibly a travel book. He travels around 38 of the lower 48 United States visiting small towns and local tourist attractions. It was written in 1989. That is important, because some of this didn't age well.

Some humour is made from the ubiquity and lack of markings of the various back roads of which he travels. In 1989 this may have been humourous, but in the world of Google Maps, smart phones, and where even 20 year old cars had onboard GPS systems, it comes across like your great great grandfather talking about how he used to buy coke for 10 cents.

The author has a prejudice against people from the southern U.S., he brings it up a lot. He also has a big problem with fat people. He sees it as an external manifestation of their internal evil. He denigrates tourists, but he is a tourist. Overall it comes across as an American who went abroad, saw things he liked, came back, the things he liked about home had changed and none of the things he liked about away were there.

From listening to this book you can see the start of how the humour in his later books came to be, but I found a lot of it fell flat in this book. Also the narrator didn't help. The narrator's voice has a very "privileged white middle aged man" quality about it. The tone an intonation make things that may have been meant as humour, come across snide and condescending. I should make it clear at this point that I am an old white person, although 15 or so years younger than Bryson.

In this book the author laments the loss of the America from his childhood. Roadside diners and Norman Rockwell settings. He describes an United States he feels is inferior to the one in which he grew up. I did find it ironic that the U.S. he describes in his visit is also gone and people lament its passing as well. The industry's and corporations he derides for ruining the country of his youth, are now gone and middle aged people today remember their heyday as the good old days.

Overall, give this one a miss, go for some of his later works where his humour is more on point and his observations are more wry and less judgmental.

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