World Famous Comics: I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away
I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away
From: Random House Audio Publisher: Random House Audio Average Rating: Binding: Audio Cassette Format: Abridged, Audiobook Label: Random House Audio Number of Items: 4 Publication Date: May 04, 1999 Release Date: May 04, 1999
Product Description: The master humorist and bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods now guides us on an affectionate, hysterically funny tour of America's most outrageous absurdities.
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, 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. From motels ("one of those things--airline food is another--that I get excited about and should know better") to careless barbers ("in the mirror I am confronted with an image that brings to mind a lemon meringue pie with ears"), I'm a Stranger Here Myself chronicles the quirkiest aspects of life in America, right down to our hardware-store lingo, tax-return instructions, and vulnerability to home injury ("statistically in New Hampshire I am far more likely to be hurt by my ceiling or underpants than by a stranger").
Along the way Bill Bryson also reveals his rules for life (#1: It is not permitted to be both slow and stupid. You must choose one or the other); delivers the commencement address to a local high school ("I've learned that if you touch a surface to see if it's hot, it will be"); and manages to make friends with a skunk. 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.
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
The travel essay master If you've lived outside the US, come from another country or ever wondered what people from other places think of Americans and the US on our home turf then this is a book you have to read. If this was written by a foreigner I might have taken some offense to parts of it. Bryson is an American and these are his humorous takes on what he saw when he re-entered his own country to live here again after time spent in Europe. A fun read (and if you see yourself occasionally, laugh it off.)
One of his best I thought this was one of Bryson's best......short weekly column type stories on one subject. They were humorous, to the point, and folksy. He does (as he says himself) complain a bit too much, but if there's only one side to the story, it sounds like marketing material instead of a commentary. Enjoyed this one.
It's great to laugh at yourself if you are living in America This is the 2nd book I have read by Bill Bryson. I enjoyed it! I admire someone who can take normal life in America and write with such humor. I found myself giggling every few paragraphs. Such talent this writer has. Basically this book is filled with essays that are organized by chapters. He writes about all kinds of things about America, after moving to New Hampshire after living in Britain for 20 years. He writes about baseball, shopping, lawyers, over-the-counter medicine, drive-inn movies, computers, waste, airplanes and taxes among countless other things that sets America apart from other countries. The thing I love about Bryson's writing is, I learn something as I laugh thru the pages. His outlook on things is sometimes like reading my mind and putting it on paper. I highly recommend these books and look forward to reading others by this author.
Too much America bashing... Not his best work. He is getting a bit too left leaning but still funny at times.
Laugh out loud funny In 1995, Bill Bryson returned to live in the United States after living in England for 20 years. A British newspaper asked him to write a weekly column about America and I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away is a compilation of those columns. His observations of America and family life are laugh out loud funny. I read many of them to my husband. He wrote these lines about his oldest child going off to college and they hit close to home for us:
"Once they leave for college they never really come back," a neighbor who has lost two of her own in this way told us wistfully the other day.
"This isn't what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear that they come back a lot, only this time they hang up their clothes, admire you for your intelligence and wit, and no longer have a hankering to sink diamond studs into various odd holes in their heads. But the neighbor was right. He is gone. There is an emptiness in the house that proves it."
The columns are short and each one is an individual read making this book easy to read when you have a lot going on.
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