Product Description

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 3 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, twenty-four-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 twenty years away.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4916 in Books
• Published on: 2000-06-06
• Released on: 2000-06-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.com Review
In the world of contemporary travel writing, Bill Bryson, the bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods, often emerges as a major contender for King of Crankiness. Granted, he complains well and humorously, but between every line of his travel books you can almost hear the tinny echo: "I wanna go home, I miss my wife."

Happily, I'm a Stranger Here Myself unleashes a new Bryson, more contemplative and less likely to toss daggers. After two decades in England, he's relocated to Hanover, New Hampshire. In this collection (drawn from dispatches for London's Night & Day magazine), he's writing from home, in close proximity to wife and family. We find a happy marriage between humor and reflection as he assesses life both in New England and in the contemporary United States. With the telescopic perspective of one who's stepped out of the American mainstream and come back after 20 years, Bryson aptly holds the mirror up to U.S. culture, capturing its absurdities--such as hotlines for dental floss, the cult of the lawsuit, and strange American injuries such as those sustained from pillows and beds. "In the time it takes you to read this," he writes, "four of my fellow citizens will somehow manage to be wounded by their bedding."

The book also reflects the sweet side of small-town USA, with columns about post-office parties, dining at diners, and Thanksgiving--when the only goal is to "get your stomach into the approximate shape of a beach ball" and be grateful. And grateful we are that the previously peripatetic Bryson has returned to the U.S., turning his eye to this land--while living at home and near his wife. Under her benevolent influence, he entertains through thoughtful insights, not sarcastic stabs. --Melissa Rossi

From Publishers Weekly
Ex-expatriate Bryson, who chronicled one effort at American reentry in his bestselling A Walk in the Woods, collects another: the whimsical columns on America he wrote weekly, while living in New Hampshire in the mid-to-late 1990s, for a British Sunday newspaper. Although he happily describes himself as dazzled by American ease, friendliness and abundance, Bryson has no trouble finding comic targets, among them fast food, computer efficiency and, ironically, American friendliness and putative convenience. As he edges into Dave Barry-style hyperbole, Bryson sometimes strains for yuks, but he's deft when he compares the two cultures, as in their different treatment of Christmas, pointing out how the British "pack all their festive excesses" into that single holiday. Bryson also nudges into domestic territory with regular references to his own British wife, the resolutely sensible Mrs. B. In a few columns, Bryson adopts a sentimental tone, writing about his family and his new hometown of Hanover. In others, he's more sober, criticizing anti-immigration activists, environmental depredation and drug laws (though he draws out the humor in these as well). Not all the columns hit their mark, and they are best read in small groupings, but this collection should sell well enough, although not likely to the heights of A Walk in the Woods. Agent, Jed Mattes. Author tour; BDD audio.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Getting reacquainted with America.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

BILL BRYSON AND HIS SATIRICAL HUMOUR AT ITS BEST
So what's this then? A collection of columns written by Bill Bryson for the British Night & Day magazine, assembled into a book? I was sceptical when I first picked it due to the unfamiliarity here; I thought he was a travel writer. But then I started reading through the first few pages and am delighted to report that they were so entertaining and accessible that I ended up finishing the book very satified.

This book is about America, about consumerism, hypocracy, politics, culture and everything else in between, such as motels and boring interstate highways and the condition of AT&T service these days. Why should all this be so interesting? Because Bill Bryson's voice shines throughout, dissecting normally more complex subjects into bite-sized articles which are eminently readable to the extent that it is at times impossible to stop. Of course, his trademark humour is present too. If you read this in public, there is the risk of embarrassment by your involuntary snorts of laughter.

However, 'I'm a Stranger here Myself' isn't perfect. Much of the book is predictable, and 85% of the time, Bill appears to be complaining. Someone as talented as Bill Bryson should know not to engage in such indulgence because the end result is that the reader occassionally feels frustrated over the ostensible monotony. You also can't help but feel that an assemblage of brief columns is not enough to make a book.

Although this book is not standard Bill Bryson fare, it still manages to excel. It really is exceptionally enlightening, to read what he has to say subsequent to spending 20 years in England. He compares the contrasts between the two nations and questioning so many aspects of life that Americans take for granted, such as driving from shop to shop when they are merely footsteps apart, or the blatant excesses of junk food. Each article (in my edition, Black Swan) covers only five pages so they are very easy to get into.

If you are an American, perhaps you will enjoy this book more than anyone else as you will undoubtedly find it compelling to look into the views of an outsider in the process of 'assimilation'.

'I'm a Strange here Myself' doesn't feel like a book, more like a colelction of columns binded together. If you are willing to accept this, it is an extremely rewarding, insightful and refreshingly diverting read. This is enough to gain a hearty recommendation.

Some parts of this book are classic Bryson, others not!
This book, which consists of columns Bryson wrote for an English paper after moving to the US, is a mixed success, in my eyes. Bryson is one of my favorite authors, and some pieces were classic, classic Bryson---so funny you really do laugh out loud for a good long while! I liked best the pieces on pop culture---diners, motels, TV, dieting, etc. However, a few pieces were about subjects you can read about in almost any newspaper editorial any day of the week---government waste and stupidity, how hard tax returns are to prepare, and the overactive legal system, to name some. I found those pieces were not really done as well---they could have been written by any skilled writer and did not have the distinctive Bryson voice. Maybe this is because they were not written for an American audience originally, and maybe those topics are not as overdone in England. Overall I still did like this book a lot, although I think I would have liked better something that was less a collection of thoughts and more a real tale of coming back to America, from a more personal viewpoint.

Planning A Long Car Trip? Take Bill Bryson Along!!!
Some books simply do not translate well to the spoken word. But, fortunately for those of us whose work requires extensive car travel, some do. Two things make Bill Bryson's latest, I'm A Stranger Here Myself, a particularly wonderful diversion for the asphalt-addled road warrior; 1) The author, with his distinctive Midwestern/English accent, reads the book, providing the necessary emphasis and inflection to get across the irony he intended; 2) The book is derived from a series of articles written for a British newspaper, so each "chapter" is a self-contained 10-15 minute essay that does not demand the continuity of attention that can often be difficult to achieve in the car.

Ostensibly, the book is a series of essays relating the author's impressions of the United States upon returning here to live after 20 years in England. In reality, though, the articles provide insight into the author's more general view of the world today. Readers of Mr. Bryson's A Walk in the Woods will note some familiar themes; Americans don't walk enough, America isn't really crowded when compared to the rest of the world, junk food is a blight on society, etc. His conversational writing style is perfect for this type of material.

While I can't say that I agree wholeheartedly with all of his views, (his clear disdain for Newt Gingrich and Ronald Reagan seems incongruous with many of his other views) each of the essays/articles is well thought out, and the majority deliver thought-provoking glimpses into the way we live our lives. In the entire collection, only the excruciating "Tax Form Instructions" falls completely flat.

Planning a car trip of 6 hours or more? Take Bill Bryson along!