After nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson, the acclaimed author of such bestsellers as "The Mother Tongue" and "Made in America", decided it was time to move back to the United States for a while. This was partly to let his wife and kids experience life in Bryson's homeland - and partly because he had read that 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another. It was thus clear to him that his people needed him. But before leaving his much-loved home in North Yorkshire, Bryson insisted on taking one last trip around Britain, a sort of valedictory tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home. His aim was to take stock of modern-day Britain, and to analyze what he loved so much about a country that had produced Marmite, zebra crossings, and place names like Farleigh Wallop, Titsey, and Shellow Bowells. With wit and irreverence, Bill Bryson presents the ludicrous and the endearing in equal measure. The result is a social commentary that conveys the true glory of Britain.

About the Author

Bill Bryson is much loved for his bestselling travel books, from The Lost Continent to Down Under, but Notes from a Small Island has earned a particularly special place in the nation's heart (a national poll for World Book Day in 2003 voted it the book that best represents Britain). His acclaimed A Short History of Nearly Everything won the Aventis Prize for Science Books and the Descartes Science Communication Prize. His latest bestsellers are The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid and At Home.: A Short History of Private Life. He has now returned to live in the UK with his wife and family. www.billbryson.co.uk.

Reviews

Bryson, who hails from Iowa, has spent the last 20 years living in England and writing about the often nettlesome relationship between his two countries, especially regarding their shared language (Made in America, LJ 2/1/95). His latest work is "a kind of valedictory tour around the green and kindly island" before he moved with his family back to the United States. With Paul Theroux's Kingdom by the Sea in hand, Bryson braves the inhospitably soggy fall weather to trudge from Dover, London, coastal villages, Wales, Scotland, and back home to Yorkshire on a helter-skelter seven-week journey that only a reader well versed in the geography of the region will follow, since there are no maps to aid the (American) reader. In fact, Bryson is writing here more for his British fans, who no doubt roar with mirth as he gently pokes fun at their excessive forbearance and fondness for Cagney and Lacey repeats. He is hilarious when transcribing a conversation with unsuspecting locals, especially in Glaswegian pubs, but merely dumb when he indulges in a curious (is it British?) bathroom humor. His portrait is certainly heartfelt, and one wonders, as he chokes up describing a stately, vanishing old England, if he will truly find happiness watching the 67 television channels in his native land. For all travel collections.-Amy Boaz, "Library Journal"

Before his return to the U.S. after a 20-year residence in England, journalist Bryson (Made in America) embarked on a farewell tour of his adopted homeland. His trenchant, witty and detailed observations of life in a variety of towns and villages will delight Anglophiles. Traveling only on public transportation and hiking whenever possible, Bryson wandered along the coast through Bournemouth and neighboring villages that reinforced his image of Britons as a people who rarely complain and are delighted by such small pleasures as a good tea. In Liverpool, the author's favorite English city, he visited the Merseyside Maritime Museum to experience its past as a great port. Interweaving descriptions of landscapes and everyday encounters with shopkeepers, pub customers and fellow travelers, Bryson shares what he loves best about the idiosyncrasies of everyday English life in this immensely entertaining travel memoir. Author tour. (May)