Notice how many one and two star ratings this book has. That alone should warn you of how bad this book is. You can read the other one star ratings, my review would be similar to most of them, so I'll keep mine short.

I bought this because I like Bill Bryson's other books and I figured I couldn't go wrong with small town journeys by a writer I enjoy. Boy, was I wrong, I did not enjoy Bryson in this book at all. I find small towns to be rather endearing and love their charm and individuality, Bryson didn't pick up on the charm that I see in them and instead had mean things to say about mostly every place he went. I found this book to be as boring as he found the towns to be, but it's all a matter of opinion, isn't it?

This book was not my first read by Bill Bryson and I will move on to other authors after this read. As I was reading this book I wondered why I had read as much of this author as I have.
Bryson tends to look down his nose at people and things that do not meet his obviously cultured standards. His anger whether displayed or passive aggressive has gotten old.
An example of my disappointment in this book is the author's report of New York City. Bryson couldn't find anything interesting within the 5 boroughs of the city.
His politically correct self contentment is no longer of interest to me.

This is my first Bill Bryson book, so I can't compare this book to his others. But I can say that I really enjoyed the sarcastic humor at the expense of middle America. Many authors try and fail to bring the same amount of wit to their books as Bill Bryson.

Bryson's journey took place in 1988, which makes the book a little dated. But you have to wonder how much less fun the trip would be with a cell phone, email, GPS and Yelp. It's a little depressing to read about how much had changed in this country in 1988, and realize that was 20 years ago.

This just doesn't compare to his earlier two books, nor to his recent memoir. I thought Kerry Shale did a poor job of narrating and finding Bryson's pace. Bryson did a wonderful job of narrating his own memoir ("The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid") and should insist upon doing the rest of his stories on CD.

Actually, 3.4 stars. I am always up for a good American road trip book and I have very much enjoyed Bill Bryson's other books. What I got was early Bryson before he found his heart and an America that was beginning to go to seed on its own indifferent overindulgences. If you have not read anything else by Bill Bryson, do not start with this. He got much better in a hurry and wrote some unmissable books, which you might not be inspired to go for if all you've read is this and ended up with a mild case of indigestion. And that would be a shame.

Anyway, in the late 1980's, Iowa native Bryson, who had spent his adult life to date living in England, returned stateside after his dad's death to rediscover America in much the same way his childhood vacations always went--a ramble by car through the heartland. He envisioned stopping in those small town motels with neon signs that had pots of flowers outside and a nice courtyard pool. He envisioned dining on decent local cuisine in a corner restaurant and later shambling about town on foot, discovering its pleasantries. He headed southeast from Des Moines on the first half of a figure eight shaped path that would hit 38 of the 48 contiguous states before he was done, in his mother's old Chevette. After a promising start in Pella, Iowa, things mostly don't go perfectly. He is often bored, the food and food service often not good, and he finds Americans mostly fat and leading unexamined lives while their heritage slips through their fingers.

Bryson makes a lot of bratty jokes and it is obvious he is writing more for his audience in England than here (when he describes the size of a place, for instance, he compares it to Shropshire). He reminds me of people who say they are licensed to tell Polish jokes because they are of Polish descent. That said, the reason I did not demote this more stars is that he was not wrong and not overly cruel about our unexamined lives circa 1987-88. Looking at his picture in time, America was an accident ready to happen. Now obesity is an epidemic, as is the wanton development and lack of municipal planning that has emptied our small towns and ringed our national parks and historic sites. It seemed to him then that we had lost an incredible amount of our cultural heritage already but for those of us who had progressively absorbed it daily without really paying attention, it is really hitting home now.

Bill Bryson drives aimlessly around America by himself and complains. Not his best work. Anyone who tucks into chicken fried steak every night doesn't get to critique restaurants. If he bothered to study about any culture other than Anglo-American, he might enjoy some of the areas he traveled through. He manages to use racial terms I honestly have not heard in three decades.

As has been pointed out by everyone else,
Mr. Bryson whines and complains through the
whole book. BUT, it still has a lot of laugh
out loud moments, getting me strange looks from
everyone several places where I happened to be reading it.

I honestly cannot put Bryson's books down. They are good reads - I've just ordered three additional Bryson books and can't wait to recieve them.

This being said - I need to re-read this book and keep a running total of just how many places he starts to go to and doesn't - because of a steep entrance fee, because of traffic, because of a plethora of reasons. I'm guessing the tally on the 'intended to' side might be greater than the tally on the 'actually experienced, as a bona fide ticket holder / road traffic warrior'. Yes, I understand what he's trying to say about Americans being easily parted with their money. However, the 'lesson' becomes annoying, and comes off as an excuse he uses to just not see many important sites first-hand.

Also, try to develop a tough skin before reading this book if you are a resident of the South - or any small town anywhere in the country that could with any stretch of the imagination be considered 'backward'. My conclusion of Bryson's absolute distain for certain places, primarally but not limited to the South, is that it is so much easier to pull comedy out of the negative than the positive. Also, people are, by nature, inclined to notice the bad before the good. Bryson, especially but not limited to this earlier work, goes with the easier cliche slam against whole peoples.

Don't get me started in his bizarre anti-elderly people stance. He goes on rants about Americans not recognizing national treasures. He's referring to architecture and landscape for the most part. And shows complete distain to the elderly. It reflects either a genuine over-zealous dislike, or an attempt at humor gone too far and repeated much too often.

All being said, I'm still gonna read his work. It's entertaining!

Having been to many of the places Bryson visited in this book, I find myself wondering how he could possibly have had such an apparently unpleasant time. Bryson's wit in this volume is not just biting, it's acidic, even heartless. This book will make you chuckle, but even most of the laughs leave a bad taste in the mouth. I have greatly enjoyed three other Bryson books, but I can't really recommend this one.

Bryson, an American who has lived for many years in England, sets out alone, in a Chevette! (maybe he should have taken a Camry), from his mother's house in Des Moines to re-live the family vacation car trips of his youth and search for the perfect small town. He travels through thirty-something states and finds a lot of nice, dotty people and endearing tackiness. As the Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff is fond of saying, "What a country!" I've spent a lot of time on the same by-ways, and drawn similar conclusions. Always perceptive and entertaining, often offensive, and a lot of good laughs.

It's an account of a car journey from Des Moines, Iowa, where Bryson was born (in 1951) and raised, around small town (and some big town) America during 1987-88 written from several perspectives that give it a special interest. Bryson looks at things in the United States from the point of view of a long-time British resident. He compares what he sees and likes or (more frequently) dislikes in 1987 with what he saw making similar car trips as a child. He looks at the Deep South, the Wild West, the Rockies, New York City and New England through the eyes of a Midwesterner. An added dimension reading it now is to compare what he saw then with things twenty years later (I was reminded of reading Least Heat Moon's "Blue Highways.").
He sometimes seems to be addressing a British reader as he makes his comparisons. In many ways the differences between Britain and America have narrowed, both for better and for worse. London is now a more dangerous city than New York and the English are almost as rich and as fat as the Americans.
He's often misanthropic and grumpy but that adds to the entertainment value. If you want a nice guy saying nice things you buy a guidebook. It's full of great one-liners, even though sometimes he tries too hard to be funny and the jokes get repeated.

I am a big fan of Bill Bryson and have read nearly all of his books but I didn't realize that this was his first until I read some of the reviews here. Still, I knew this book was different from his other books. As enjoyable as they were, this was the one that really had me laughing and oftentimes wiping away tears of laughter. While Bryson is always funny, he is viciously so in this book and I could see how that would not appeal to some people.

While a good number of Bryson's books are travelogues of a sort, I don't think categorizing them as such really does his works justice. They are not only a man's descriptions of his travels but also windows into his very psyche. He has always poked fun at the people of various cultures he encounters during his travels but he is sometimes downright mean in this book. While I certainly don't advocate being mean to others, the fact of the matter is that Bryson strikes me as a man who is really mild-mannered and rather awkward. What we're reading in his books, and in this one in particular, is what goes on inside his head and what I really admire about this is his candor. There are often things that run through my head that I would never want anyone else to know about and so I frankly can't help but be a bit in awe of someone who actually exposes those thoughts to the light of day. I think if we're all honest with ourselves, we will have to admit that we all share the same pettiness that Bryson sometimes exhibits.

As for his comments about the places to which he travels, it is true that they aren't always kind. I'm a native of Michigan and so I eagerly devoured the section of his book that had to do with Michigan and, frankly, I was surprised that it was as positive as it was. While I do love my home state, I was rather shocked that Bryson didn't comment on the tackiness of the downtown area of Mackinac Island and that he was so mild in his descriptions of the tourist trap that is Mackinaw City. Bear in mind that the island is one of my most favorite places in the world. Even so, I do acknowledge that parts of it are more than deserving of criticism. It can be very painful to hear someone criticize a place that we love but it is also worth listening because there may just be some value to their criticisms. And, if not, it's always possible to laugh with friends later over what a jerk the person doing the criticizing is.

Bryson, though, is a native of the U.S. The fact that he lived in England for so long is relevant only because the changes to his native country are so shocking to him upon his return. Yes, he is critical but he is critical of every country that he visits, including England. This is proven by his book "Notes from a Small Island". Bryson is good at picking out the things about which people are most sensitive and poking at them. This will naturally not endear him to everyone but I don't think that this book singles the U.S. out in any way. Instead, I think he has a very valid point about how sad it is that the U.S. is becoming more and more generic every day--and this book was written long before you could find a Starbucks on every corner. His points bear consideration. What have we sacrificed in our quest for convenience and 24-hour service?

I am a Bill Bryson fan but this book got old very quickly. Older middle aged readers might relate, as I did, to the endless car trips we took when we were young, in my case from Pittsburgh to Miami Beach in the summer without air conditioning. We loved the Burma Shave signs.

The book did have a touch of Bryson's droll humor, but complaining is not funny and endlessly finding fault left me a bit defensive about small town America. I think younger readers would find it hard to connect with this book at all, other than as a history lesson, and the story of small towns in America is much more pleasant than depicted by Bryson. Maybe his writing can be better appreciated when his target is not so close to home.

The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson is a delightful and funny book about his 38-state road trip throughout the United States. In many respects, Bryson reminds me of Tony Horowitz (Confederates in the Attic, Baghdad without a Map), although with more of a dark side.

Bryson grew up in Iowa, but then moved to England after graduating from college. Twenty years later, "I became quietly seized with the nostalgia that overcomes you when you have reached the middle of your life and your father has recently died and it dawns on you that when he went he took some of you with him. I wanted to go back to the magic places of my youth." Having lost my own dad two months ago, I can certainly identify with this sentiment. The other purpose of his trip was to discover the perfect small town. He was looking for "a place of harmony and industry, a place without shopping malls and oceanic parking lots, without factories and drive-in churches." Borrowing his mother's Chevette, he sets out across America.

Bryson visits cities and small towns, national parks and local curiosities. Throughout his travels, he regales us with his observations and witticisms. He gets sidetracked from some intended destinations due to the weather, road closures, etc. He decides to skip the Biltmore Estate when he discovers that the entrance fee is $17.50 (and this is in 1990). He bails out on Beaufort, SC when he comes upon a sign prohibiting just about everything--"I don't know what sort of mini-Stalins they have running the council in Beaufort." He is disappointed in a number of towns including Holcomb, Kansas (site of the famous Clutter murders from In Cold Blood) and Mark Twain's hometown, Hannibal, Missouri. Some places are a pleasant surprise including Philadelphia, although "No other city in American pursues the twin ideals of corruption and incompetence with quite the same enthusiasm." And then there are the places that he finds just awesome. The mansions in Newport, RI are "a cross between a wedding cake and a state capital building" and as for the Grand Canyon, "no matter how many times you read about it or see it pictured, it still takes you breath away."

Bryson's road trip also provides him with a chance to reminisce about his family vacations. I had tears rolling down my cheeks reading about the "bombs" he and his siblings lobbed out the window made up of Ohio Blue Tip matches stuck into apples and oranges. He also reflects on all the changes since he grew up in the US, including billboards and RVs. "RVs are like life-support on wheels. Astronauts go to the moon with less backup."

My only complaint is that Bryson didn't always get his facts quite right. Lucy Mercer was not FDR's secretary, but Eleanor's social secretary and it's doubtful that they did any "rustic bonking" at Warm Springs, GA. But overall, I truly enjoyed The Lost Continent and will definitely be reading more of Bryson in the future.

I was very disappointed in, and angered by, this book. Having lived in a couple of the small towns that Bryson skewers I was unpleasantly surprised at the arrogant, belittling tone he takes. If all you know about small towns is what you read in this book, you'd assume that all small-town residents fit the stereotype of being backward, country bumpkins who are a bit slow on the uptake and clearly can't match wits with such a pithy author. He insults both the towns and the residents. He mocked one town for being in his drive-thru view little more than a series of strip malls. Having lived in that particular town, it's obvious that he didn't venture a block or two off the main street, where beautiful scenery is plentiful. And I would also add that this town is the friendliest place I've ever lived. If Bryson's intention was to come off as a big city elitist he succeeded.

This is without a doubt the funniest book I have ever read. One of the kind that tears are streaming from your eyes so that you can't see the page funny. This is a fantastic read for anyone that endured car trips with their parents when they were young.

I usually like Bill Bryson's books - Notes from a Small Island, a Walk in the Woods, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, A Short History of Nearly Everything, all made me laugh. But not The Lost Continent. This one was one long complaint of a roadtrip; Bryson doesn't seem to find anything he enjoys until he gets to Yellowstone. There's no detail of his travels, just a repetitive litany of how bad the food is, how horrible the motel, how fat the tourists, and how dull the road. It's not worth the read.

This was a trip the author could have missed. He finds mostly small ugly towns without good motels, surly waittresses and mediocre meals. On the way he seems to somehow miss towns in the area that are unique and well rounded.

I got tired of reading about his misfortunes and rude treatment. This should have been a short story. JEF

In keepin' with some 'o the otha remarks on this hear review page, I'd jus' like ta say that Mr. Bill Bryson is condasendin' of 'Merica, condasendin' of 'Merican values, and - above all - condasendin' of 'Merican small towns and the fine folk and farm animals who inhibit them. How he could live on some depressin', foggy lil' island like England (which we dun saved durin' WWII and protected during the Cold War, lessin' it become some Soviet satellite) for two whole decades and then return to the good ol' US of A and NOT APPRECIATE the value of strip malls. clogged highways, and fried chicken joints is beyond me. This book may be funny to them there thinkin' folks, but what Mr. Bryson's got to realize is that thinkin' folks like him is the overwhelming minority, and to that I say good riddance. An' heck, if someone actually listened to his whinin' and criticizin', then 'Merica might actually start changin'; it might start listenin' to the people, and imagine what where that might lead. The glasses in England may be half empty Mr. Bryson (and I reckon they's plenty smudgy, too), but the ones hear in the Land of the Free are ALWAYS half full. So, why don't you saddle on up and ride on back across the Pacific to yer' beloved Britain. What's that? You did? Well, good!

PS: I really enjoyed your 'A Short History of Nearly Everything.' 'Mother Tongue' was enlightening too.

Billy-Joe Barndoor, author of ...
Notes from the Other China - Adventures in Asia

Like most of Bryson's books, especially "In A Sunburned Country" which is his exhaustive book about Australia, he could have had the same effect in 100 fewer pages. I, as someone who has also published a travel book and numerous articles, love the history and culture of these places, but it rambles. And Bryson is, as usual, condescending. As someone who moved from the coastal elite towns of LA and DC to the Heartland or "Nowheresville," Bryson should not mock places like Des Moines so much. Iowa's capital city, like the rest of America's heart, is a great place to live and visit. That he spent time in London, where Muslim Jihadists threaten to take over each day, and loved it, is telling. Nonetheless, even a pompous liberal elite like Bryson, when talented, can be entertaining.

This book is absolutely hilarious, and Bill Bryson, is, in my opinion, the best writer the planet ever produced. I'm a creative director at an ad agency, and I swear, his writing is so superb that MY writing actually gets markedly better after I read him. But only for about a week. Then it's like Flowers for Algernon...I get all average again!

Boy oh boy do I envy anyone who has not read Bill Bryson's books, because you still have all that pleasure in front of you!

I read this after having been through and in a few of the places Bill Bryson mentions in The Lost Continent : Travels in Small-town America, so at the time I found parts of it highly entertaining. Accounts of Nowheresville, USA are not going to be too interesting if you get lots and lots and lots of them, though.

Originally published on SensiblySassy.blogspot.com
Lost Continent:
Well a couple years ago I read Bill Bryson's book Neither Here nor There and it was a hilarious guide through Europe. So when I saw Lost Continent on the shelves I instantly wanted to read about Bill's road trip through the U.S. Within the first five pages I was chuckling to myself and out loud. (Luckily Jon was the only one sitting next to me on the plane as I read) By the time the hour and a half flight touched back down on the ground I had polished off quite a few pages.

As the book went on I began to feel less enamored with the book than I initially had. The tone shifted from funny to cranky as the trip/book wore on. Now I wonder if it is the fact that the trip began to take its toll on Bryson or if he felt that crotchety was a good tone for him to switch to-we may never know. Overall if you were to sample some of Bryson's work I would absolutley recommend Neither Here nor There over Lost Continent . Neither Here nor There gives you a hilarious and personal guide through Europe whereas Lost Continent really helps you remember what it was like to take loooong car rides with your parents-the good and the bad.

We all know what big cities are like, but how about small towns? Of course Bill Bryson did not (& obviously could not) visit all small towns in his home country, this book satisfied my curiosity towards small towns in America.

I guess there's always irresistible charm of overland travel, and Bryson described his overland trip with hilarious writing style.

One suggestion: if the editor could add a route map at the beginning of book showing Bryson's itinerary, it would be even better.

Bill Bryson, a child of the 50s, used to spend each summer with his family on one of those all-American vacations that consisted of endless driving, sweltering heat and the inevitable destination that was, due to his father's preference, free and educational. He always longed for the chance to buy tacky hats with plastic crap on them and other tasteless souvenirs, and now that he's an adult, he finally gets that chance when he embarks on a nation-wide odyssey in the hopes of getting to know the country he left behind in The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America.

Although he was born in Des Moines, Illinois ("Someday had to," he explains on the opening page), Bryson's heart was elsewhere, and he spent most of his adult life living in England. Some 30 years after those summer journeys he's back in the states, and with no specific itinerary or time constraints, he leisurely passes from town to city, looking for the perfect place that survived from his childhood in this travelogue.

Of course, America has changed since Bryson's childhood days, and instead of finding Perfect Town, U.S.A, he encounters a deluge of faceless shopping malls, unremarkable villages and far too many gas stations. His hilarious observations usually come at the expense of the people he talks to and places he visits, which almost seems to suggest an air of British snootiness that he picked up from his years living abroad. Still, there are plenty of irreverent comments ("I only ever knew one journalist with a truly tidy desk, and he was eventually arrested for molesting small boys. Make of that what you will; but just bear it in mind that next time somebody with a tidy desk invites you camping") that are just so outlandishly amusing, that it's easy to forgive him for his treatment of the occasional small town citizen.

Traveling across America and being disgusted with the over-commercialization is hardly groundbreaking material. John Steinbeck, the quintessential American, did exactly that in 1962 with Travels with Charley: In Search of America. While Steinbeck is a folksy, talkative guy, Bryson instead bares his teeth. He travels alone and all along the way he doesn't strike up many conversations aside from brief chats with a plethora of waitresses and moronic country folk. He does meet up with a friend, and later a niece, but they're pushed into the background and the surroundings become the main characters. The closest we get to travel companions is when Bryson vividly describes what the past trips with his family were like. His mom says nothing other than "Would you like a sandwich, honey?" and "I don't know, dear."

Much of Bryson's journey on both coasts, and everything in between, brings up plenty woeful places, yet he does find some attractions worthy of his admiration. A rare few of the stops on his trip nostalgically remind him of his youth, from the sheer scope of the Grand Canyon ("Your mind, unable to deal with anything on this scare, just shuts down and for many long moments you are a human vacuum") and the "sleepy" college town of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania ("You feel at first as if you should be wearing slippers and a bathrobe"). Bryson covers so much ground (38 states) and visits so many similar towns, that at times, his travelogue almost read like a list. Even the memorable places are often described as simply "pleasant," and after a paragraph, it's off to the next destination. Like the long road trip that Bryson embarks on, The Lost Continent captures the vastness and monotony of driving across America. Because of the now-famous Bill Bryson humor, for most of it works well and there are plenty of laughs, The Lost Continent becomes more than another lackluster expressway town.

I loved this book. Part of the reason why I loved this book is because I drive in my car every year out west from Buffalo, NY. I also have taken many car trips in the eastern part of the country. When I go on these driving trips I do it because I am reaching a destination to do some hiking and or climbing.

I thought the idea of this book was great of Mr. Bryson trying to find the perfect town in small town America. The humor that Mr. Bryson has is terrific. In the end Mr. Bryson has a greater appreciation for the area of the country, which he originally comes from after exploring much of the country in his vehicle.

I thought this book was very funny because it makes humor out of many American types of things. It also is a good representation of what life is like on the road. Part of the reason why I enjoyed this book so much was because I have traveled a lot of this country by car and seen many small towns. This book does offer so many interesting pieces of information throughout it. I would recommend this book to anyone that has traveled the road and seen many small towns in America. I would also recommend this book to anyone that appreciates Mr. Bryson's humor.

I got this book from a book-swapping club and thought, since I love travel stories, I would definitely enjoy this one. I have not heard of Bill Bryson before and thought, oh, a traveling memoir ... it's perfect for summer (and for the lull before the Harry Potter storm, of which I am very anxiously waiting for the last book ...). This book is funny ~~ if you like juvenile potty humor. I have to be in the mood for it. I was in the mood for it. Normally, I am not in the mood for it since it is crude and distasteful in my opinion (which doesn't really matter much anyways!).

There is one big big gripe about this book. He totally dissed on Ohio. Well, duh. If you only travel the turnpike in Ohio up to I-75 ~~ yeah, you're not going to find anything remotely attractive about the interstates. On page 172 of my book, he mentioned that he "awoke early and experienced the sinking senation that overcomes you when you first open your eyes and realize that instead of a normal day ahead of you, with its scatterings of simple gratifications, you are going to have a day without even the tiniest of pleasures; you are going to drive across Ohio." He must have never taken a childhood vacation in Ohio. I've been through Iowa and had strep throat in his hometown of Des Moines on our way back from the Rockies ~~ all I can say is that Des Moines is fortunate enough to have a Steak and Shake because I was dying of pain and they have the best milk shakes ... and a great book store too. I'd like to point out to Mr. Bryson that he needs to check out Ohio again ~~ this time, travel on the backroads. It is a beautiful state ~~ one of the nicests in the good ol' USA.

I digress. Other than the dissing of my home state, he was funny in all respects of his travels. But after awhile, you can only make fun of the people in different states for so long and after awhile, you start wishing he'd stay in places longer than a night or for a cup of coffee. Then you wish for a more indepth book on traveling stories ... but it's not that kind of book, so it is disappointing when you find out that he's just going to make fun of the natives across America. He is funny but then he isn't funny. You just have to read this book to know what I mean. However, he sure hit the RV travelers dead on! When I worked at Yellowstone National Park in my youth, we called those tourists, tourons simply because they're tourists and morons at the same time. Not very nice, I know, but I was very young. Bryson's comments about the tourists were right on though and did make me laugh.

I am not rushing out to buy another Bill Bryson book because this is the first one I've read and I am not sure if it's worth the money to read him again. But then again, I might give him another chance ~~ but hopefully, his tastes have matured to where he's actually funny and insightful, instead of funny and juvenile.

7-18-07

There is plenty to satirize and poke fun at in America but make it clever,do it with incite, and do it with humor. After thoroughly enjoying 2 Bryson books, A Walk in The Woods, and, A Short History of Nearly Everything, this was very disappointing.
It started, laugh out loud funny but...by the 3rd chapter or so, I was thinking I was wasting my time. I felt by the end it was a book he wrote for easy money.
He drives from town to town, staying in cheap motels, watching TV in the evenings and makes virtually no attempt to engage the locals. He bemoans the changes and commercialization that has transformed many locations since his family visited in his childhood, any of us could make those observations. His attitude is condescending. He simply makes sarcastic remarks and draws conclusions about towns and people based on buying gas, renting a motel room or eating in a local restaraunt. Making fun of waitreses and people who were genuinely trying to help him is not my idea of a humorous, or inciteful look at America.
The fact that Bryson is an observant, humorous, mid-westerner who has lived abroad for 20+ years should have made for an A-1 read. Instead, I told my wife and sons, forget this one.

Mr. Bryson may appeal to certain types, but I find no humour in his trashing of small town life in America. A product of a small town himself, Bryson finds great pleasure in seeking out the worst in every town he "visits," then writes disparagingly about the inhabitants, even mocking the various dialects he encounters. He paints a negative image of the places he visits, often perpetuating outdated stereotypes in order to make the place seem worse. Anyone who goes looking for the worst elements of a locale will likely find them. He then exaggerates those findings. Such great talent has he.

Mr. Bryson seems to have a rather high opinion of himself, but his writing reveals that he is actually full of himself (and full of something else). He lived in England for a number of years apparently curing him of his small town American upbringing. Now he has returned to report back to the rest of the world how bad his native country really is.

His boorish exaggerations, intentional disparaging remarks, frequent use of vulgar language, and lack of any genuine interest in his subject matter (other than to sell books) leads me to believe he is a less decent form of life than any of the people he so mercilessly belittles in his book. For all their perceived shortcomings, those people are authentic. Bryson is a phony, and I might add, a very unattractive bloke himself.
What a shame so many readers fall for his second-rate comedy.

Please move back to England Bryson, and don't return.

Like the author, I grew up in Iowa. And that's primarily why I read this book. Bryson returns to the USA after working for years in Britain and takes a nostalgic roadtrip through small town America. Yes, some of his humor and observations are sarcastic, but that's part of the fun. The reader has to understand the need for us to laugh at our idiosyncracies and inconsitencies. It's apparent that some reviewers here took offense instead of smiling, and a writer always runs that risk when using satire as a comedic device. Some folks are too insecure or just plain dull to enjoy it. If you have a sense of humor and don't feel threatened by the occasional parody, then you'll enjoy this book. If you can only take everything literally, stick to the newspaper.

It would be a real stretch to say that Bill Bryson thoroughly researches everything he writes about, goes out of his way to learn about and see and document only the most interesting aspects of places, and presents his portraits of places fairly and with an effort to see every side of both places and issues.
A real stretch.
But, it wouldn't be a stretch at all to say that Bill Bryson is undeniably loaded with wit and humor. This book is, I believe, Bill Bryson's very funniest. I laughed so hard at his descriptions of eating in small town diners that I woke my wife up who was sleeping next to me, several times. I tried to read passages from it to my brother over the phone, but couldn't get certain words out because I was silenced by laughing, by the sort of full-body laughing usually only high schoolers drinking milk get to enjoy.
This book is not an objective or a thorough or a totally accurate picture of America; its passages about the West, places I'm especially familiar with, almost appalled me at the total lack of effort Bryson made to go out of his way to see anything other than major attractions like the Grand Canyon. Even there, he just stood on the edge and looked over. However, what this book is, is funny. Very funny. Dangerously funny, especially if you ever find yourself hiding in an Anne Frank-style bunker, living secretly in fear of the government, where laughing very loudly could end your life.
I highly recommend this book. Writers about American subjects will find quotable quotes on almost every region, and lovers of good comedy will find a very enjoyable read.
Plus, and I couldn't believe this, it's really well-indexed.

I snatched this up after thoroughly enjoying "A Short History of Nearly Everything", but this book has forever put me off of anything else Mr. Bryson will ever write. It's relentlessly arrogant and petty, and overall just extremely tiresome. For someone who harps on and on about the lack of civility from those he encounters, he doesn't really seem capable of displaying any himself. Particularly in his encounters with waitresses he comes off as a first class jackass.

If you want a narrow-minded journal of a pathetic anglophile's tour of the US, by all means pick up the book. Personally I think there are better ways to spend one's time and money.

I love car trips and also have memories of childhood back seat adventures, so I looked forward to this read. I made it about half way through and gave it up as a depressing waste of time. For a much better look at regional quirks and differences I recommend another mid-westerner, Calvin Trillin. In ALICE, LET'S EAT, for example, he visits places with people much different from himself...and writes with great wit about what he sees and does. If he makes a bit of fun of his adventures it is infused with a fondness for the people he meets and a delightful self deprecating attitude. Quite the opposite of Bryson's arrogant attitude.

Bill Brysons book 'The Lost Continent' sucks. I picked up this book from the library expecting it to be like his other novel, Bill Bryson Down Under. Instead, all I got was (as another reviewer commented) a hate trip down memory lane full of his gratuitous dislike for his home country. The book reads like an adolescent wrote it in high school. He talks about the epidemic of bloated women, calls each town boring, picks on each stereotype he can possibly comment on and doesn't offer much in the way of entertainment. You also get the sense he's a patriot for his adopted country, England, and doesn't have a mote of pride for where he was born. Apparently the grass is greener on the other side for this fellow. I enjoyed Bill Bryson's 'Down Under' as a resident Aussie, but this book has turned me off all Bryson. Trash

Bill Brysons book 'The Lost Continent' sucks. I picked up this book from the library expecting it to be like his other novel, Bill Bryson Down Under. Instead, all I got was (as another reviewer commented) a hate trip down memory lane full of his gratuitous dislike for his home country. The book reads like an adolescent wrote it in high school. He talks about the epidemic of bloated women, calls each town boring, picks on each stereotype he can possibly comment on and doesn't offer much in the way of entertainment. You also get the sense he's a patriot for his adopted country, England, and doesn't have a mote of pride for where he was born. Apparently the grass is greener on the other side for this fellow. I enjoyed Bill Bryson's 'Down Under' as a resident Aussie, but this book has turned me off all Bryson. Trash

While author Bill Bryson was a child in Iowa, his family took many road trips to other places by car. Bill, now a 36 year old expatriate, decides to retrace these trips to recapture the whimsical, nostalgic memories of his 1950s childhood. Bill's narration is definitely funny and spot-on. I couldn't help but hold my breath until he got to towns I'd been to or knew of, to see how his brain interpreted it.

While author Bill Bryson was a child in Iowa, his family took many road trips to other places by car. Bill, now a 36 year old expatriate, decides to retrace these trips to recapture the whimsical, nostalgic memories of his 1950s childhood. Bill's narration is definitely funny and spot-on. I couldn't help but hold my breath until he got to towns I'd been to or knew of, to see how his brain interpreted it.

Bill Bryson was the perfect author for me and may be the perfect author for a lot of people. He has a humorous perspective and always has interesting descriptions of places he visits and can connect to the reader wonderfully.

In this book, he travels around America in a car in his journey to find the perfect town, nicknamed "Amalstad." Along the way he meets interesting people and places. Nothing escapes his commentary as he drives all around America discovering quaint, small towns and also sharing with us the story of big cities.

Bill Bryson has an uncanny knack for connecting to the reader. His writing is similar to a conversation written down. He relates many of his examples to many things that ordinary people have experienced.

This book is a must read for anyone. You will be surprised as you learn new things and also laugh at old, all through the eyes of a funny author.

Bill Bryson was the perfect author for me and may be the perfect author for a lot of people. He has a humorous perspective and always has interesting descriptions of places he visits and can connect to the reader wonderfully.

In this book, he travels around America in a car in his journey to find the perfect town, nicknamed "Amalstad." Along the way he meets interesting people and places. Nothing escapes his commentary as he drives all around America discovering quaint, small towns and also sharing with us the story of big cities.

Bill Bryson has an uncanny knack for connecting to the reader. His writing is similar to a conversation written down. He relates many of his examples to many things that ordinary people have experienced.

This book is a must read for anyone. You will be surprised as you learn new things and also laugh at old, all through the eyes of a funny author.

Bill's writing always amuses me. I love all he does.
Although not "deep" by any stretch of the imagination, his observations ring true more often than not.

Bill's writing always amuses me. I love all he does.
Although not "deep" by any stretch of the imagination, his observations ring true more often than not.

Bill Bryson crosses the line between humorous sarcasm to just plain bitter, hateful commentary on perfectly lovely spots. He greedily latches on to any stereotype available and exploits it. He happily criticizes events and places he doesn't even visit. I'm sorry he had such a miserable childhood and angry relationship with his father, but I don't think that justifies trashing an entire country. To Bill, I offer sympathies for a sorrowful youth that has obviously left deep an painful scars even well into his adult years.

I'm so sad to have spent money on this book. I loved Bryson's Walk in the Woods, and hope to enjoy the Sunburned Country. But the Lost Continent is going in the trash.

I truly do not understand the hyperbolic praise lavished on this book. It stunk! His snooty, snotty tone made me feel like a captive stuck in his car as he plodded blindly across country. The notion of a cross-country trip rehashing childhood memories and providing opportunity for contemporary social commentary is a fine one, but good Lord this man couldn't be more snide if he tried! His goal seemed to be to find the bad in everything. I only feel sorry for him that he wasted his time and travels in this way. I did not find his rants and raves witty in the least; They were simply pathetic and unkind. And for crying out loud, has he ever heard of planning? He came to my home state of Massachusetts only to wander Provincetown a bit and then head up to Haverhill, of all places? It's his own fault for missing the beauty of this state. This is why they invented a little thing called "Travel Guides." They GUIDE you in your TRAVELS to see the best of a particular area. Hello? Mr. Bryson? Ever heard of them? He seems to think any exit he chooses should blindly lead him to his "Amalgram," or perfect town. Wishful thinking, my snooty, snotty friend. Readers, don't even bother with this one. If I sound mad, I am. There's nothing worse than wasting time on a book hyped up as funny that is anything but. (I confess, I read only the first half - then I came to my sense and did the equivalent of jumping out of his front seat onto the highway rather than continue being stuck with his interminable griping.)

I've thoroughly enjoyed several other books by Bill Bryson, but this one has to be considered a sad disappointment. Virtually all of it comes off sounding vicious and mean-spirited, in spite of the author's intention of being humorous.
He travels across America in his mother's Chevette (doing damage to it and never exhibiting any sign of remorse), eats at dumpy, greasy diners so as to have plenty of bad food to complain about, stays at roach motels in order to whine about the lousy accommodations, gripes about the dumpiness of poor, small towns in the U.S. and then has the unmitigated gall to say that Lady Bird Johnson's campaign to remove ugly billboards from the interstate highway system was a colossal mistake. Yeah, Bill, your appreciation for the beauty of billboards shows what an eye for culture you've got.
He spends fifteen seconds passing through some small town and has the amazing ability to know exactly how everyone there wastes their lives. Whatever tiny sliver of some state he sees is somehow, to him, indicative of the entire state. And if he meets one person in a town that he isn't impressed with, it means that every single person in that state is somehow ugly, uneducated and overweight. Oddly enough, if he happens to encounter somebody who is well-educated, that doen't mean that everyone else is, too. No sweeping generalizations allowed if it would mean that something was good rather than bad. And his repetitious negative comments about the weight of everybody he encounters get awfully tiresome. That appears to be the absolutely, positively most important thing about all Americans in Mr. Bryson's eyes.
This entire book sounds patronizing and so, so smugly superior. Mr. Bryson probably pats himself on the back at frequent intervals for being so much smarter, wittier, better educated than anyone else in the entire nation. And the meanest remarks he seems to reserve for his own parents, who must have been more than glad to see him take off for Europe.

I've thoroughly enjoyed several other books by Bill Bryson, but this one has to be considered a sad disappointment. Virtually all of it comes off sounding vicious and mean-spirited, in spite of the author's intention of being humorous.
He travels across America in his mother's Chevette (doing damage to it and never exhibiting any sign of remorse), eats at dumpy, greasy diners so as to have plenty of bad food to complain about, stays at roach motels in order to whine about the lousy accommodations, gripes about the dumpiness of poor, small towns in the U.S. and then has the unmitigated gall to say that Lady Bird Johnson's campaign to remove ugly billboards from the interstate highway system was a colossal mistake. Yeah, Bill, your appreciation for the beauty of billboards shows what an eye for cultural amenities you've got.
He spends fifteen seconds passing through some small town and has the amazing ability to know exactly how everyone there wastes their lives. Whatever tiny sliver of some state he sees is somehow, to him, indicative of the entire state. And if he meets one person in a town that he isn't impressed with, it means that every single person in that state is somehow ugly, uneducated and overweight. Oddly enough, if he happens to encounter somebody who is well-educated, that doen't mean than everyone else is, too. No sweeping generalizations allowed if it would mean that something was good rather than bad.
This entire book sounds patronizing and so, so superior. Mr. Bryson probably pats himself on the back at frequent intervals for being so much smarter, wittier, better educated than anyone else in the entire nation. And the meanest remarks he seems to reserve for his parents, who must have been more than glad to see him take off for Europe.

Have been reading this "type" of work for many years.

Once thought Mr. Bryson funny. Now, I find him mean in spirit toward anything in the USA. Note that he has decided to live in great Britain

Also, have realized his works are somewhat derivative,

Please read Jean Shephard...as in Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories. And others.

Jean has no mean streak, as does Mr. Bryson. I have just come to realize this. And feel sorrow that I once enjoyed Mr. Bryson.....

Bryson is certainly witty. But any pleasure in the book was ruined by the author's snotty and obnoxious tone. I can not understand why the author thinks he is better than the people everywhere he visits; there is certainly no objective evidence in support of his inflated self-image. What a whining, immature, mean jerk. And by the way, there's a fair sprinkling of gutter language in the book.

The book THE LOST CONTINENT is an amazing captivating read. Bryson is truly brilliant in his descriptions. This CD totally KILLS that. First of all the narrator reads at a mile a minute, sometimes to the point where you can't understand him. And second, they abridged the CRAP out of it, cutting some of the most interesting commentary and actually cutting the entire SECOND HALF of the book! While the book is amazing, this particular recording of it should be avoided at all costs.

I think Bill Bryson can be very funny. "In A Sunburned Land" was hilarious, whereas this was pretty much trite and dated humor. In fact it reminded me of the kind of humor undergraduate English Majors at overated eastern liberal arts colleges would find funny. The beginning of the book is an ongoing insult of everyone, the middle he calms dawn, and he ends really trying to force some funny. It's a very dated and poor effort by a usually funny man. Skip it.

My overall recommendation is to read Bryson's brilliantly funny recent works, then go back to less recent works, then stop before you get to this one. As other discerning reviewers have noted (especially Amer-Aussie, whose spot-on review you really must mark as 'helpful'), Bryson looks for the worst in America and, surprise, he finds it. Sure, there's much that's funny here, but the humor gets swallowed up by the mean.

Let me add one more observation, which amazingly seems to have eluded all: one of Bryson's worst habits--even worse than his penchant for telling you where he is politically (he hates Republicans)--is his smug disdain for and ridicule of religion, particularly Christianity. Happily, Bryson's later books show a maturity absent in this one.