WELCOME TO DES MOINES. THIS IS WHAT DEATH IS LIKE.As a pre-teen boy growing up in Iowa, Bill Bryson read National Geographics and yearned to be a European boy, to travel, to be someplace else. Small-town America was just so rural. And in many books (In a Sunburnt Country, I'm New Here Myself, Notes from a Small Island, Travels in Africa), Bryson has done exactly that. Even better, his witty travelogues invite us to join him for good times and bad.
In Britain it had been a year without summer. Wet spring had merged imperceptibly into bleak autumn. For months the sky had remained a depthless gray. Sometimes it rained, but mostly it was just dull, a land without shadows. It was like living inside Tupperware.The Lost Continent brings Bryson back to America, back to the rural scenery he once despised. He plans to travel a route across the mid-west in homage to his father. Along the twisted secondary-highway route, Bryson reconnects with the country of his birth, as manifested in the small towns, parks, and wayside stops he visits. His road trip expands to cover the whole American scene, from the largest city to the grubbiest desert cafe-grocery store-gas station. This is Bill Bryson, after all—we visit the pits as often as the heights.
In the morning I awoke early and experienced that sinking sensation that overcomes you when you first open your eyes and realize that instead of a normal day ahead of you, with its scattering of simple gratifications, you are going to have a day without even the tiniest of pleasures; you are going to drive across Ohio.A Bryson travelogue is a series of poignant or pithy vignettes, stirred together into a potage of unique flavor. It will never be too sweet. New York: "Next door a store sold pornographic videos, right there on Fifth Avenue. My favorite was Yiddish Erotica, Volume 2. What could this possibly consist of...?" Wells, NV, had: "absolutely, in my opinion, the worst food I have ever had in America, at any time, under any circumstances..." Savannah, GA, a Hyatt Regency: "from the F-ck You school of architecture..."
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Article comments
1 - Joel Caris
I absolutely love Bryson. I'm almost out of books to read by him, which makes me sad. But I still have A Short History Of Nearly Everything to tackle, which should keep me busy for a little while, at least.
I read The Lost Continent last year and just loved it. It's amazing how he can combine funny with poignant with informative without it ever seeming hard. Some of the most entertaining reading I've ever had.
2 - DrPat
I had to repair the Amazon links - I think the ones I had before were from the UK site.
I tear up every time I read it. *sniff*We started with I'm a Stranger Here Myself, and enjoyed it so much we got every other book by Bryson. I admit, though, The Lost Continent is my favorite.
I particularly liked the last paragraph:
3 - Joel Caris
The Lost Continent was definitely one of his best. I'm not sure if I could name a favorite, though. If I did name one, it might very well be A Walk In The Woods. It's the first book I read by him and I still love it. I think it helps that I like hiking so much, myself.
It also probably helps that it was the first book I read by him, thus my first exposure to his great and funny writing.
4 - Dritte
I'm 50 pages in and I have to know if its worth continuing. You see I'm one of those dolts from Dunder who doesn't mind the prairie and I think I've had enough of the smugness and condescension and just plain meanness that leaps out. Does it get better or is it one continous Iowa joke about people who work for a living?