The road to Little Dribbling
Ratings29
Average rating3.7
15
Ratings29
Average rating3.7
A loving and hilarious—if occasionally spiky—valentine to Bill Bryson’s adopted country, Great Britain. Prepare for total joy and multiple episodes of unseemly laughter. Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to discover and celebrate that green and pleasant land. The result was Notes from a Small Island, a true classic and one of the bestselling travel books ever written. Now he has traveled about Britain again, by bus and train and rental car and on foot, to see what has changed—and what hasn’t. Following (but not too closely) a route he dubs the Bryson Line, from Bognor Regis in the south to Cape Wrath in the north, by way of places few travelers ever get to at all, Bryson rediscovers the wondrously beautiful, magnificently eccentric, endearingly singular country that he both celebrates and, when called for, twits. With his matchless instinct for the funniest and quirkiest and his unerring eye for the idiotic, the bewildering, the appealing, and the ridiculous, he offers acute and perceptive insights into all that is best and worst about Britain today. Nothing is more entertaining than Bill Bryson on the road—and on a tear. The Road to Little Dribbling reaffirms his stature as a master of the travel narrative—and a really, really funny guy.
Featured Series
2 primary booksNotes from a Small Island is a 2-book series with 2 primary works first released in 1995 with contributions by Bill Bryson.
Reviews with the most likes.
Bryson doesn't have a bad book, but this one is easily his worst. An awful lot of curmudgeonly complaining. The “Here's what I was thinking in my head” conversations pall after a while. His liberal politics are also somewhat intrusive. I still laughed out loud in places but disappointing.
I think I have read 90% of what Bryson has written including his wonderful books on Shakespeare and on the English language. Since joining goodreads I have just added the latest ones - a definite 5 star History of Everything and which spanned macroscopic and the equally delightful 1927 which spanned microscopically.
I got the impression the book was a contractual obligation. Yes there are amusing parts, and the summary at the end was cogent, albeit a bit pastoral (he obviously, but who can blame him, avoided inner city Britain at all costs). However I love Bryson for his snarkyness but I got the feeling I just saw bitterness in this one.
He made his name with travel books, but I think he is now at his best in books like Home, or the other two mentioned above where his pedagogy is pure unadulterated fun fact digging. I feel, in reading those, just like Bryson does in delighting at reading a museum note in this book - he does not remember a single thing it said but he hugely enjoyed it.
So this one was “mailed in” and though I did not waste my time reading it I will use it for a next visit to the uK, I feel the need to re-read A Short History...
I've been walking along the backroads of England for nine days with Bill Bryson. It's been a pleasant experience, mostly (though, be warned, if you plan to journey with this fellow that he goes off at the drop of a hat, and he has a rather foul mouth to go along with his rather foul temper). He stops in every tiny dot of a town and he tends to find each spot somewhat disappointing. He made much the same journey many years ago, and, like those of us of a certain age, seems to discover that the years have not been kind to most of rural England. It's not as easy to get to these little towns now. The food isn't quite as tasty. The souvenir shops have moved in. And so on. And so on. He's humorous, of course, and that's what keeps us enthralled. But there were many times along this journey that I wished he'd just go home if he was so disenchanted.
