Bud the Wiser

The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island | Bill Bryson

Bill Brysons' new book. Reflections and perceptions on the British Isles 20 years on from his book, "Notes from a Small Island". Out on October the 8th. Looking forward to it.

Some reviewers not too keen on it though.........

Don't be so beastly to Britain, Mr Bryson: As Middle England's favourite travel writer attacks the country he once eulogised, a furious JANET STREET PORTER hits back... | Daily Mail Online

robin1234

Ooh good, I'll look forward to reading this. That review in the DM sounds spot on too! I'm afraid a lot of Americans seem to go through the same phases, first they love England then they get very irritated at it. Did UK change, or did the American observer get older and wiser and more crabby? Paul Theroux is another example of this I think ...

robin1234

Found this in the Daily Telegraph.

Britain's heritage at risk due to ' ill-educated internet critics', says travel writer Bill Bryson - Telegraph

Not so much a review of the new book, but just highlighting one aspect of it. Very interesting and perceptive, I thought.

Here's a quote from the DT article (sorry for the lack of formatting, iPad is really playing dumb today.)

Bryson added taking the English countryside for granted is now "almost certainly its greatest threat".

"The sad irony is the things that make the landscape of Britain comely and distinctive are almost entirely no longer needed," he writes.

"Hedgerows, country churches, stone barns, verges full of nodding wildflowers and birdsong, sheep roaming over windswept fells, village shops and post offices and much more can only rarely now be justified on economic grounds, and for most people in power those are the only grounds that matter.

"There is a strange, blind, foolish inclination to suppose that the features that make the British countryside are somehow infinitely self-sustaining, that they will always be there, adding grace and beauty. Don't count on it."

sallysimmons

I read that Janet Street Porter review and feel like I always do after reading the Daily Mail .... like I need a shower. Lord that was a nasty, grimy little article.

Really looking forward to the book though - thanks for sharing!

Shard

+1

I do hope Bill's book is written to a higher standard that JSP's piece. From the extracts, however, I sense it's going to be a contrived whinge from a grumpy old man. Nevertheless, look forward to reading it at some point.

scot47

Daily Mail is best left to those who like that sort of thing ! Bryson is good - will deffo get a copy through the library.

Shard

That goes without saying ! Hate buying books these days.

theOAP

I've just returned from town, where I bought the last copy available in my local Waterstones (half price @ £10). I'm a luddite, and enjoy holding a real book in my hands. It's now lying at the top of the unread stack, so it may be a week or so before I get to it, if I can wait.

I did cheat, and opened the book to a middle page and read one passage:

"The A46 similarly runs from Tewkesbury to Coventry, but then gives up the will to live (a feeling we have all had in Coventry) before popping up again in Leicester...."

This may be a tad different read than Notes From A Small Island.

robin1234

Yes, same subject, but getting at it from a different angle. One of the really good aspects of Notes from a Small Island is that he talks about a relatively small number of places in such an intriguing way, that you really want to visit them. Two places that he covered in that book were (unless I'm misremembering) Port Sunlight, and Morecambe in Lancashire. I haven't actually made the trip or trips yet, but I hope to one day...

I'm sure, in the new book, if he's critical of aspects of modern Britain, it'll be in a thought provoking way.

fulwood

robin1234, When I was much younger about 50-60 kids from Orphanage where I was raised used to invade poor Morecambe! I had nothing but fond memories of it. I went back I'd say in the 1990s and like Blackpool it has lost its joie de vivre. It may have changed but my last memory of it was that it showed its age.. (Like we all do).. Don't let me deter you from going but just my 2 cents worth.

meinkl

After first reading “Notes from a small Island” it prompted me, briefly, into action to try my hand at writing a similar account of my new found home in Malaysia. That was nearly 20 years ago and I have yet to finish chapter 1. It's a very long chapter though, full of ups and downs, good times and bad, happy and sad. So, dependent upon when along the undulating road of travel and adventure, one decides to sit, write, finish and publish, the result is likely to have a positive or negative tint on the perceived view of life, the universe and everything. I suspect Bill was recently in the valley rather than the hilltops.

At the time of "Notes from..." his (uncharacteristically for a non-Brit) satirical view of UK life hit a receptive ear of those living therein. However, it's possible that such satire and cynicism are no longer as PC as a decade or more ago and thus his wry remarks are not taken in quite the way he intended. Certainly not by the more opinionated editors and reviewers, who don’t seem to have erred from their ‘holier than though’ standpoint gained during the 90’s.

Personally, having often travelled the A46's invisible path through Coventry, which, like a mysteriously disappearing stream dropping underground in the Peak district, yet to emerge miles beyond, I find his tongue in cheek approach a refreshing, albeit critical, viewpoint.

scot47

Well to my great surprise I won a copy of the book in a competition run by our local bookshop !

Shard

Well done!

Our library has 32 reservations on the book so looks like I might be Kindling after all.

Bud the Wiser

£9 in Asda. Read it on the way back to the US ( on QM 2 no less ). Have to say, some of his observations are spot on, although a lot of what he finds distasteful would only apply to people who have the same interests. And it's not all negative, not by a long way.
Very funny in parts.

cheers

Doesn't come out until January 2016 out here.
cheers