Notes from a Small Island (Audiobook) Audio CD – CD, 17 May 2004

I appreciate that Bill Bryson has a huge following and I've come to him very late. I really enjoy travelogues, and with his reputation and the cover blurb, I was expecting a hilarious and fascinating read. Sadly, for me, it was neither of those things. I didn't find his writing particularly engaging and I'm afraid to say I didn't laugh once. I also found many of his anecdotes exaggerated to the point of them losing credibility. Overall it was an easy read and quite interesting, but I'm sad to say I shan't be reading any more of his work, though I had such high hopes.

Really looking forward to, finally, reading this much lauded book. Whilst it was enjoyable reading about the British idiosyncrasies and towns I haven't visited, I found the author's writing quite repetitive - using the same descriptive phrases. I also really disliked his intrusive political comments (they didn't add anything to a book about the British character) and, having assumed him to be a rather pleasant, amusing chap, found him to be unnecessarily vulgar, quite rude to people and generally unpleasant. I was really surprised as I don't usually get to form an opinion of an author via their writing. Obviously, as the book has had such glowing reports, I've missed something!

I was first introduced to Bill Bryson by a close friend who presented me with a copy of "The Lost Continent" for my birthday. I read it, loved it and never stopped laughing. So I immediately bought several more of his books and have just completed "Notes from a small island". It really is a fantastic account of Britain as Britain really is, and for Brits of my age Bryson describes exactly what we grew up with. He has an incisive mind and an eye for detail plus an innate sense of humour that together produce a vivid insight into real life that is often critical, invariably affectionate and always presented with a fantastic sense of humour. I loved every page of this book and can strongly recommend it to true Brits everywhere. I look forward to reading many more of Bill Bryson's books.

This is my first acquaintance with Bill Bryson, and while it might not be the last, I found this disappointing in the light of the author's popularity. What is lightly amusing at first soon palls. The droll, but rather schoolboy level of humour and the thread of anti-intellectualism - the crass Wordsworth reference stands out - become increasingly tiresome. Much of the observation is facile and stereotyped. Few will have travelled so extensively acoss the UK, but they will find little that is enlightening about those areas they are familiar with. There are a few nuggets of generally unknown facts, but overall I found the book at best shallow. Certainly there are no in-depths insights into the British character to be found here. It may be that as some reviewers suggest we don't encounter Bryson at his best here. Time will tell.

This book is very funny and reading it (once you have been to the UK and you understand what the author is talking about) is absolutely hilarious. With a wit and pun the author accurately describes the British culture and various places.The big downside for me though is the common use of profane, vulgar language. I wanted to give this book to a friend as a gift, but reading swear words on every page is a no-no.Is it really so difficult to use humour without swearing?

I first read this book ten or so years ago. It did make me laugh. I cleared it out to the local charity shop. It hasn't lasted well. The encomium on the last page still rings wonderfully - if you are a habitual listener to Radio 4 - true. And the bonkers department store in Windsor is just as bonkers - nowadays with added Royal Warrant - but it's not Britain as it is, maybe it wasn't Britain as it was.

This review is for the unabridged audio version in 9 CDs by Belinda Audio with Audible Studios, the narrator is William Roberts, first class reader, suited to the tone of the author, in fact he has read other books by Bryson and he gives the right mood and interpretation …. I particularrly like his Scottish accent, I think he is spot on! A little word of caution, I tried to listen to this very book read by someone else and after five minutes I had to stop, not everyone can read this author in an entertaining way.Having said that, CD 3 has part of the end of Chapter 6 missing ….. I do not think my copy was defective, firstly because it was still sealed before I listened to it and no other CD sounds cut or defective, although the problem might be present only in this CD and secondly this is a recurrent defect which I am coming across more and more often in audio books on CD. The audio download might be ok, but I already paid a lot for this audiobook on CD, audiobooks are usually much more expensive than printed or kindle material, and I am not going to spend more on this: fortunately I found a text version of Chapter 6, where I have been able to make sure that indeed some text is missing. Considering how much audiobooks cost, they should be more careful and make sure that all CDs are perfectly recorded with no part of the text missing.I read this author before, so I knew about the unfortunate use of swearing and alas this book is no exception.The first book by Bryson that I read and I enjoyed so much that I thought I would read all of his books, the ones available in audio, was ‘a walk in the woods’, then I read other books like Notes from a big country, Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island, and Down under, although they are not 100% perfect for my taste, I have enjoyed them more than this one:He is right sometimes …. But not always ….Sometimes I have the feeling that he is too ‘miserly’ and I do not ‘enjoy’ the reading anymoreI agree with him about many things, but not all …More than in his other books, in my opinion here his attitude is more like:‘Look at me, I am lucky! I happened to be in England by chance, I happened to find a job by chance right away after landing and during my job which I found by chance and right away after landing, I also met the lady who would become my wife soon by chance and right away after landing and we have many kids, see how lucky I am and I even love this country’Which I would call self-centered and inappropriate, especially for the people who possibly love the UK more than he does, and for reasons beyond their control, were not able to stay in the UK or were not lucky enough to settle down.Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that he found an everlasting fairy tale in England ….What I ask myself is, would he feel the same way about the UK, if he did not find his own America here? I sometimes have the feeling that the only reason why he loves the UK so much is, because this country has given him much to be grateful for, would he have stayed if he did not find a job? Would he have stayed if he did not find an English wife?Would he have stayed if he had no reason to stay, only for the sake of living in the UK?If the answer is ‘yes, then I would be more inclined to believe that he genuinely and unconditionally loves the UK.Another comment is about statistics: they are not very much mentioned in this book, but when they are, I do not like the fact that to me, at least it seems he treats this information as if they were indisputable truths, statistics need to be ‘read’ in consideration of the current state of affairs, local policy, the political party in power and so on …. To me they are not always telling or revealing.…. When I hear on TV or read on the Internet for example, ‘they’ (they who?) conducted a survey in London and this is the basis for whatever statistics about the capital, I wonder who do ‘they contact? I have been living here for more than 20 years and no one ever asked me to participate in any survey!Sometimes it seems that the only thing he wants to mention or think about is sex, which to me, is degrading from a happily married man with kids, who boasts about how lucky he’s been and so on.I liked ‘A walk in the woods’ very much and although I liked his sense of humour then, although I did notice the swearing, I thought I would enjoy his other travel books as well but I was mistaken.So far all his books have enjoyable moments, but for example with is dry sarcastic comments, sometimes what he says is spot on, other times he goes too far and I would have thought that a man of his age and experience, should know when to stop out of consideration, just to avoid being offensive or inappropriate but he doesn’t, not always anyway. Besides I never know when he is serious or when he describes a situation according to what he would have liked to have done or is it something he actually did? Not that the answer to this question is always important or relevant to enjoy what he is saying.Did he make a negative comment about Samuel Johnson? If he did …. Well …. I better not use words here …. Sometimes there are words which are better left unsaid.I wanted to end this review by saying that this is the book I like the least, when by chance I started reading ‘neither here, nor there’, already after listening to a session on CD 1, it sounds even less likeable than this one, but I will leave my comments for the next review!Accordingly I will only say for now that at the beginning it seemed to be disgruntled, it jumped between one situation and, of course, before he settled down in England, only to come back to the situation he was describing at the beginning ….I bet while he wrote it, he must have worn a lot of ‘jumpers!!!!’!