I'm a Stranger Here Myself

Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away

By: Bill Bryson

Narrated by: Bill Bryson

Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

A classic from the New York Times best-selling author of A Walk in the Woods and The Body.

After living in Britain for two decades, Bill Bryson recently moved back to the United States with his English wife and four children (he had read somewhere that nearly three million Americans believed they had been abducted by aliens - as he later put it, "it was clear my people needed me"). They were greeted by a new and improved America that boasts microwave pancakes, 24-hour dental-floss hotlines, and the staunch conviction that ice is not a luxury item.

Delivering the brilliant comic musings that are a Bryson hallmark, I'm a Stranger Here Myself recounts his sometimes disconcerting reunion with the land of his birth. The result is a book filled with hysterical scenes of one man's attempt to reacquaint himself with his own country, but it is also an extended if at times bemused love letter to the homeland he has returned to after 20 years away.

©1999 Bill Bryson (P)1999 Random House, Inc.

Enjoyable

This isn't a deep meaningful book. It's not even really a book so much as a collection of columns. Having finished it, I couldn't tell you what was in it. But I can tell you that I enjoyed it immensely, in a laugh-out-loud-in-several-places way.

The real problem is that some crackhead in an office somewhere decided that it needed to be abridged, because apparently people who buy audiobooks don't like hearing long engaging stuff by talented writers that make fabulous readers.

Among the greatest humour writers of our time

Any additional comments?

A very satisfying piece of humor about Americans and America as only an ex-patriot can tell it. It's a collection of bite-sized stories that appeared in print many years ago and are as funny now as they were then. I can't get enough of Bill Bryson because he really has no peers. Priceless, in my opinion.

Home Again

Bill has been away in England for far too long and America seems like a foreign land.

Not His Usual Fare

I've always rated Bryson highly, I recommend his books, and give them away as gifts.

This book however is just really bad. It's a compilation of magazine articles written for a British audience so he really just ripping on America in every segment, and it's not even funny stuff.

That's not some flag waving defense of the ol' homeland either. I mean I absolutely love his other books, if I had a problem with his politics I would have fell out with him over those as well where he's not necessarily shy about his ideological views. But those views don't interfere or define his writing though.

In this book however they do define the writing, and it's just not very good.

Deadly Boring

Boring and unfunny, this is the worst book I've ever downloaded. Whining content with a whining narration. Try PJ O'Rourke's All The Trouble in the World instead.

The worst book I have listened to

I tried and tried to listen to this one but it was excrutiatingly boring! Perhaps it is Bill's voice, perhaps it is his weak attempt at humor. I would not recommend this title to anyone! Try David Sedaris instead! (He is a wonderful and hillarious writer and narrator!)

Unwelcome Guest

I was very disappointed in this book. While many of the obvervations were humorous, most of the humor is based on a complaint of some kind. Listening to someone complain non-stop for 5 hours and 58 minutes is not my idea of fun. I felt as though I had an unwelcome guest in my car I wanted to let out at the next stoplight. I always finish everything I start, but the thought of listening to the final disk of this book is making my eye twitch.

Amusing but...

not as engaging as his other books.

Poor Bryson

Even if you are a Bryson fan, I would pass on this book. Bryson explains (warns) at the begining that this is just a collection of weekly columns that he wrote for a British magazine, and that he often did not really have much to stay. I am a fan of his work, and thought he was being modest - he wasn't. It is very clear that most of the columns were written at the last moment and based on what he did that day or is seeing out the window - and those are the good ones. For the others it seems that he just picked an article out of the paper, grabbed a few facts (usually getting them wrong) and then get sanctimonious about the subject he clearly does not have any clue about. Perhaps he felt that his British readers would not know any better. Imagine if you took Seinfield's "observational humor", removed ALL the humor and then even botched most of the observations. Extremely disappointing.

Excellent

This was a very entertaining book.