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I WAS 15 when I first became aware of Bill Bryson.
PA Archive / PA Images
PA Archive / PA Images / PA Images
During a two-week family holiday in 2002, I was prowling my uncle’s house looking for something to read.
Social media had yet to be invented and my Irish skin couldn’t take much more of the southern German climate, so I needed to retreat from the shade, and I’d have read the back of a cereal box had it been in English.
Scanning the bookcase in his hall, my uncle plucked a well-worn paperback from a shelf and handed it to me.
As we were going home the following day, I didn’t intend to finish Bill Bryson’s Notes From a Big Country, but I needed to do something other than re-read the postcards I had written (and not sent) to my friends about the wonder that was H&M, a store that had yet to reach our shores.
And as it was a book of essays, it fitted perfectly into that plan.
Pages in, and you couldn’t have pried it from my hands.
I laughed the type of laugh most of us only associate with classroom scenarios; wheezing, aching, almost-lose-control-of-your-bodily-functions laughing.
The following day I relieved my uncle of his book, and spent the journey home guffawing.
I tittered on the way to the airport, howled in the terminal, and was frantically hushed by my mother on the flight as I squeaked out a one-liner the well-known travel writer had written on Christmas Tree stands.
In the 15 years she had known me, she had never seen me react to a book like this: there’s laughing, and then there’s seizing.
On that day in August, the lines were significantly blurred.
16 years later, I have read the vast majority of Bill Bryson’s books, and it’s his talent at weaving the ordinary into the extraordinary which continues to captivate.
You’re not being preached at, you’re simply along for the cultural ride.
I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.
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Ostensibly a travel writer, the Iowa-native has also written a memoir, in addition to books on language, history and science.
But his depiction of family life, his in-depth account of his own personal shortcomings, and his interpretation of the people he encounters on his trips are where his true talent lies.
Of course, it’s pleasurable to learn about a country or continent you have yet to visit, or heartwarming to reminisce over one you have, but the travel aspect is secondary in many cases.
The nuance of everyday conversation, the tribulations born of even the most minuscule disruption to plans, and the idle musings of the writer is what sets Bill Bryon’s books apart.
If you have yet to familiarise yourself with his work, a quick scan on Twitter will show you what you’re missing out on.
Reading only 2nd page of The Road to Little Dribbling and I already have tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. #BillBryson#hilarious
Reading #billbryson The Lost Continent..Freakin hilarious look at the United States.
— Jamie A MacDonald (@MacDonald_Photo) July 2, 2009
Can highly recommend #Billbryson#TheRoadToLittleDribbling All his books are fab but his views on modern #celebrities make you 🤣 as it has to surely be what most people think. The rest of book is hilarious also. A must read!
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Saturday 21 December, 2024
Saturday 21 December, 2024
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A short history of nearly everything I love about Bill Bryson's books
I WAS 15 when I first became aware of Bill Bryson.
During a two-week family holiday in 2002, I was prowling my uncle’s house looking for something to read.
Social media had yet to be invented and my Irish skin couldn’t take much more of the southern German climate, so I needed to retreat from the shade, and I’d have read the back of a cereal box had it been in English.
Scanning the bookcase in his hall, my uncle plucked a well-worn paperback from a shelf and handed it to me.
As we were going home the following day, I didn’t intend to finish Bill Bryson’s Notes From a Big Country, but I needed to do something other than re-read the postcards I had written (and not sent) to my friends about the wonder that was H&M, a store that had yet to reach our shores.
And as it was a book of essays, it fitted perfectly into that plan.
Pages in, and you couldn’t have pried it from my hands.
I laughed the type of laugh most of us only associate with classroom scenarios; wheezing, aching, almost-lose-control-of-your-bodily-functions laughing.
The following day I relieved my uncle of his book, and spent the journey home guffawing.
I tittered on the way to the airport, howled in the terminal, and was frantically hushed by my mother on the flight as I squeaked out a one-liner the well-known travel writer had written on Christmas Tree stands.
In the 15 years she had known me, she had never seen me react to a book like this: there’s laughing, and then there’s seizing.
On that day in August, the lines were significantly blurred.
16 years later, I have read the vast majority of Bill Bryson’s books, and it’s his talent at weaving the ordinary into the extraordinary which continues to captivate.
You’re not being preached at, you’re simply along for the cultural ride.
Ostensibly a travel writer, the Iowa-native has also written a memoir, in addition to books on language, history and science.
But his depiction of family life, his in-depth account of his own personal shortcomings, and his interpretation of the people he encounters on his trips are where his true talent lies.
Of course, it’s pleasurable to learn about a country or continent you have yet to visit, or heartwarming to reminisce over one you have, but the travel aspect is secondary in many cases.
The nuance of everyday conversation, the tribulations born of even the most minuscule disruption to plans, and the idle musings of the writer is what sets Bill Bryon’s books apart.
If you have yet to familiarise yourself with his work, a quick scan on Twitter will show you what you’re missing out on.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to re-read that chapter on Christmas Tree stands.
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