And it’s exactly what made the book so compulsively entertaining for the rest of us.īryson’s new book, “The Road to Little Dribbling,” follows much the same formula - and to similar effect. But he dressed his adoration in a garb of gentle mockery. Bryson clearly loved Britain - professing in the book’s final pages his affection for everything from drizzly Sundays to Marmite, that impossibly salty spread the Brits gobble up by the jar-full. The reception said much about the British character, which in its post-empire incarnation forbids taking oneself too seriously. The British responded to their ungracious American guest by turning him into a national celebrity, buying his book by the million and bestowing upon him every honor this side of a knighthood. The weather, the public transit systems, the architecture, the food and especially the people - everything about Britain came in for good-natured grumbling, and all of it ended up in his book “Notes From a Small Island.” Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close MenuĪ little more than 20 years ago, Bill Bryson wandered the green and pleasant lands of his adopted home, Britain, and found amusingly cantankerous things to say at nearly every turn.
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