Reviews of the novels by Bill Bryson and Sue Townsend
Book reviews from January 2000
Notes from a Big Country
travel/memoirs/biography
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This book at Amazon (UK) Notes from a Big Country
This book at Amazon (Deutschland) Notes from a Big Country
This book at Amazon (Canada) Notes from a Big Country
This book at Amazon (USA) Notes from a Big Country
My first review in the year of 2000. Bill Bryson has now moved back to USA, and this book consists of columns he wrote for Mail on Sunday's magazine "Night & Day".
78 columns are collected in this book, all more or less amusing observations of the mysterious behaviour of people in USA. Naturally all of the stories are about the differences between USA and UK, for example that Americans take their car wherever they are going; even if it's only a block down the street, how the Americans love to have a variety of choices for everything, how everyone is happy to sue each other on basically no grounds at all, that irony is an unknown concept and all personal that have anything to do with aeroplanes are the devils' servants.
Brysons' strength is that he manages to capture all those little details that oneself ponder on from time to time. I have to get my hands on more books by Bill Bryson since they are most surely the funniest books I've read in a long time.
And in particular: "Notes from a Big Country" is certainly the funniest and best book I have read so far this year :)
78 columns are collected in this book, all more or less amusing observations of the mysterious behaviour of people in USA. Naturally all of the stories are about the differences between USA and UK, for example that Americans take their car wherever they are going; even if it's only a block down the street, how the Americans love to have a variety of choices for everything, how everyone is happy to sue each other on basically no grounds at all, that irony is an unknown concept and all personal that have anything to do with aeroplanes are the devils' servants.
Brysons' strength is that he manages to capture all those little details that oneself ponder on from time to time. I have to get my hands on more books by Bill Bryson since they are most surely the funniest books I've read in a long time.
And in particular: "Notes from a Big Country" is certainly the funniest and best book I have read so far this year :)
| See also these humourous books about travels: My review of Lonely Planet Unpacked My review of Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island. |
Adrian Mole - the Cappuccino Years
fiction
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Several years ago I read a book about Adrian Mole, and I found bits and pieces of it funny.
So after seeing the advertisment in the underground every morning I decided to get
"Adrian Mole - The ...". The whole book (as with the other books about Adrian Mole) is
written like a diary. You will follow him, now in his thirties, as he struggles as a chef
at a rather shabby restaurant. He is now divorced and have a two year old son, which his
parents has to look after. He still has got a crush for Pandora, and still manages to get
into pathetic situations. His literary ambitions are still strong and he tries to get
BBC to make something out of his script for a humourous tv-series about a serial-killer.
Much things goes wrong and nothing goes the way Adrian expects it to go. It was quite a pleasent reunion. The only problem is that
as with the other books, it does not really come to a proper ending, but since it's written
in the form of a diary, it is not that much to do about it. I will most certainly get
the next novel, if there will be one about Adrian Mole.
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