The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson

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The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Chicago Travel Books

The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson
Price: $13.18

Features

Paperback: 320 pages

Publisher: Harper Perennial August 3, 1990

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0060920084

ISBN-13: 978-0060920081

Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches

Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces

Product Review
A travelogue by Bill Bryson is as close to a sure thing as funny books get. The Lost Continent is no exception. Following an urge to rediscover his youth (he should know better), the author leaves his native Des Moines, Iowa, in a journey that takes him across 38 states. Lucky for us, he brought a notebook.

With a razor wit and a kind heart, Bryson serves up a colorful tale of boredom, kitsch, and beauty when you least expect it. Gentler elements aside, The Lost Continent is an amusing book. Here's Bryson on the women of his native state: "I will say this, however--and it's a strange, strange thing--the teenaged daughters of these fat women are always utterly delectable I don't know what it is that happens to them, but it must be awful to marry one of those nubile cuties knowing that there is a time bomb ticking away in her that will at some unknown date make her bloat out into something huge and grotesque, presumably all of a sudden and without much notice, like a self-inflating raft from which the pin has been yanked."

Yes, Bill, but be honest: what do you really think?

From Publishers Weekly
Journalist Bryson decided to relive the dreary vacation car trips of his American childhood. Starting out at his mother's house in Des Moines, Iowa, he motors through 38 states over the course of two months, looking for the quintessential American small town. "Some of Bryson's comments are hilarious--if you enjoy the nonstop whining wisecracks of a 36-year-old kid," determined PW.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Reader Reviews
Bryson was born in Des Moines, and moved to England in his early twenties, marrying and settling down there. This book documents a trip by car around America, starting and ending in Des Moines, after many years in the UK. The ostensible theme of the book is a search for the perfect small town; a sort of Ray Bradbury idealization of fifties America. There's no such town, of course, but Bryson just uses the theme as a springboard for some of the funniest descriptions, stories, and digressions I have ever read. When I started reading this book, I laughed so much my wife wouldn't let me read it in bed. Then she picked it up and discovered how funny it was, and wanted to read it before me. Eventually we compromised, and kept it in the car; the rule was that whoever was driving had to read it to the driver. Several times, however, the reader was laughing so hard that they couldn't get comprehensible words out, and the driver had to pull over to the hard shoulder and grab the book for themselves. Yes, he's a curmudgeon, as other reviewers here have noticed. That's just his style. He's not deep, either; his occasional ruminations aren't negligible, but he's no Mark Twain. But he has an acidly sharp eye for inanity and stupidity, and his anecdotal technique is flawless. His other travel books are along much the same lines, but to me this is the funniest, though "A Walk in the Woods" does show he is capable of good introspective writing. "The Lost Continent" is sharp, satirical, acute, and unkind--wickedly funny in every sense of the word.

The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America
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Updated on 10-31-2008.