Monday, June 5, 2017

The Road to Little Dribbling

The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson  380 pp.

Twenty years after his popular and amusing travelogue Notes from a Small Island Bill Bryson once again travels the island country that is his adopted home. Following what he has named the "Bryson Line", he traveled from Bognor Regis in the south to Cape Wrath in the north visiting small, out-of-the-way places en route. His descriptions include some of the best and worst things to be found in the U.K. including wonderful small villages, attack cows, disappointing hotels, and restaurants ranging from sublime to scary. Bryson's dry humor and offhand comments add so much to his writing. Statements like "There has never been a less pleasurable, more Soviet-style environment in which to pass half an hour than in British post office queue." and "The first time I came to Birmingham, I had never seen a city that was this ugly on purpose are perfect examples of the Bryson-esque descriptions found throughout the book. While I think "Notes . . ." is better, ". . . Little Dribbling" is worth reading. 

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