The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson

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(Published 2015 – Reviewed February 2017)

 

I got this book for Christmas and from the first page I was hooked. The introduction about the author getting hit on the head by a car park barrier – and it being completely his own fault – had me laughing out loud. In long hand.

 

Bryson’s writing style is easy and full of character, full of humour – often self-deprecating – and infectious; whatever he writes about is interesting. He speaks warmly and sometimes critically about Britain, but as an American who has married an English woman, has English children and grandchildren, his observations and criticisms are welcome and valid. He isn’t an outsider looking in; he’s now an adopted native; he pays his taxes and has every right to grumble.

 

This book marks the twentieth anniversary of his landmark and best-selling exploration of Britain in Notes From A Small Island. This time he follows a different route and travels through a digital, quaint, awe-inspiring and often insane Britain. It was fascinating to read his perspective on the many places I have visited, such as Beachy Head and Avebury, but also I now have a long list of places I intend to visit, such as the new Stonehenge Visitor Centre, because his writing his whetted my appetite.

 

I have savoured this book – it’s taken me a month to get through, because I only read it when I had complete peace and a cup of tea, or I would have finished it in two days. I treasured every moment and have been out and bought an armful of his other titles as a result.

 

Bill Bryson is the funniest and most relevant travel writer and documenter of our times.

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