But a lot has happened since Notes on a Small Island, not least Bryson is 20 years older - his memory is longer and can therefore judge how things have changed, and yes, he's less tolerant. They may find him carping and critical and constantly going on about how stupid people can be, how ugly town centres are, how everything costs too much and how we're surrounded by crass grammatical errors. Some readers may find they like the Bill Bryson of Notes on a Small Island better than the Bryson of Little Dribbling. Overall it's a deeply affectionate view of England, a place Bryson loves and cares deeply about.
It may be justifiably critical in many places, but it's not mocking. It's not funny but IS mocking which gives an entirely wrong impression of the book - enough to put any half-serious reader off because the book IS funny and ISN'T mocking. Perhaps Bryson's editor thought it was a good title or perhaps Bryson himself did - but it's not. I must get a criticism out of the way first - the title, Little Dribbling. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio. Music written and performed by Richard Digance, inspired by The Road to Little Dribbling. Once again, with his matchless homing instinct for the funniest and quirkiest, his unerring eye for the idiotic, the endearing, the ridiculous and the scandalous, Bryson gives us an acute and perceptive insight into all that is best and worst about Britain today.ĭownload includes accompanying PDF map of the Bryson Line. And not just because of the cream teas, a noble history, and an extra day off at Christmas. Yet, despite Britain’s occasional failings and more or less eternal bewilderments, Bill Bryson is still pleased to call our rainy island home. Following (but not too closely) a route he dubs the Bryson Line, from Bognor Regis to Cape Wrath, by way of places that many people never get to at all, Bryson sets out to rediscover the wondrously beautiful, magnificently eccentric, endearingly unique country that he thought he knew but doesn’t altogether recognize any more. Now, to mark the 20th anniversary of that modern classic, Bryson makes a brand-new journey around Britain to see what has changed.
The hilarious book that resulted, Notes from a Small Island, was taken to the nation’s heart and became the best-selling travel book ever and was voted in a BBC poll the book that best represents Britain.
Twenty years ago Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to celebrate the green and kindly island that had become his adopted country.
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