I enjoyed this one much more than I remember enjoying my previous (and only other) Bill Bryson read. Bryson harshed on a few cities pretty hard and (maybe I'm just too sensitive?) I imagined that the people in those cities might be a bit insulted by what he wrote, but since most of the disparaging comments seemed to be about the inanimate cities and not specifically about the people in them, maybe it would be easier to avoid taking it personally. Either way, this time none of the comments were about me or about any city I would consider mine, so I was better able to laugh with Bryson. In fact, I actually literally laughed out loud more than once (but after the first time--p41 with the dead beaver in Paris--when I tried sharing the humor with my husband and he just stared at me, unsmiling, while I snorted with laughter, I decided to keep the rest of it to myself).Obviously I haven't been everywhere in Europe, and just as obviously this book doesn't cover everywhere in Europe, but my past travels had surprisingly little overlap with Bryson's catalogued "travels in Europe." However, I wrote a little list of places I haven't been to (yet) which this book made me really, really want to see:
- Bruges, Belgium (p60)
- Sorrento, Italy (p144)
- Capri, Italy (p148)
- Como, Italy (p174 . . . and are you starting to see a theme?)
- Split, Yugoslavia (just kidding . . . Croatia, p218)
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1 comment:
I love Bryson but he has a newer book that I reviewed awhile back that was really horrible. He was so grouchy in the telling and it made for a really unpleasant reading experience. I am not sure what's changed with him but his old stuff is great.
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