I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away

I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away | Bill Bryson | Good, but Bryson can be preachy

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I'm a Stranger Her...

	I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away Bill Bryson Broadway, 2000 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 228 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Great light reading

I had recently finished a string of somewhat more serious, heavy books ranging from social fiction to mathematics. Needless to say, I was in desperate need of something a bit more relaxing and this book fit the bill perfectly.

I picked it up because I had read some of Bryson's previous work (In a Sunburned Country, A Short History of Nearly Everything) and considered him hilarious. He is the only author that has caused me to actually laugh while reading, at times embarassingly and in public!

This book is a collection of weekly essays he wrote for a period of three years, and the material is all stream-of-conscious style. So you can read for 5 minutes or 5 hours and still enjoy it, perfect for commuters, both of the subway and the airlines. Though it's supposed to cover 'American' life, he really just writes about his own and only occasionally plays up the contrast to the British culture, as an American I never felt lost or confused.

All in all, read this book at some point when you've found that your reading material of late has became a tad bit dreary or monotonous.

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Good, but Bryson can be preachy

Bryson has been one of my favorite authors for years now - the first thing of his that I read was a magazine article comparing American weather extremes with those in his beloved England. This collection of his writings on things American has me confused. Most of it, as his wife points out, is griping about this and that. Bryson has a tendency to talk down anything that doesn't fit into his view of how life ought to be and a maddening myopia when it comes to understanding why things are the way they are in this modern world. Balancing that though is his self-deprecating humor and his beautiful writing skills. There is a piece on global warming in this book that all ought to read. So, basically, even though he is preachy, and a bit gripy, he is laugh-out-loud funny and writes so very well that I will keep reading him.

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Not his best, but still better than almost anyone else.

I have recently been on something of a Bill Bryson binge. After having read The Mother Tongue and Short History of Nearly Everything, which are two of his more scholarly-oriented books, I decided to try this book (perhaps it should be noted that I have yet to read A Walk in the Woods; this title just appealed to me more). The stories are often clever, and despite his complaining Bryson rarely, if ever, leaves the threshold of good intentions. You have to realize that he is a reasonable man, and some of these irrational rants are merely for entertainment's sake and should not be analyzed too closely. That said, I agree with the editorial review in that sometimes he enters Dave Barry-like hyperbole, something that I personally find cheap and overdone, although Dave Barry sells lots of books, so many people must think that style is funny. Personally, the more subtle humor, such as the little pet names for his wife he inserts in what are supposedly transcripts of actual conversations with her, that amuses me, as well as his joyful musings on American life. Sure, this isn't too profound, but it manages to be intelligent and critical, while maintaining a whimsical air. I can just picture ol' Bill with a content smirk on his face while writing these articles in his house in Hanover. To sum it all up, Bill Bryson seems like the kind of guy I would love to have over for dinner, assuming he is as entertaining in person as he is in this book.

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out of the bryson norm

I enjoy his writing, and was still entertained by this book. But the tone caught me off guard. Now, I know that this was written for a british audience, out of weekly articles thrown together for light amuzment. And since it was a weekly article, the complaining wouldn't get old so fast. That all said, it only makes sense that, this is probably more entertaining to a british audience, and to be taken in small doses.

Maybe it was the chronic exaggeration, but I just didn't relate to a lot of what he considered the american experience. And because of that, I didn't get a lot of the humor. Furthermore, if you're american, you feel like the butt of the joke more often then not in the book. Teamed with the fact that you may think he is misleading foreigners with his misconceptions and exaggerations, it almost feels like anti-american propoganda.

And the bitterness--a few times anyway--has such a genuine feel. Which makes the book hardly lighthearted from my perspective. Anyway, the bitterness is kind of hard to understand because, a lot of the book is spent decrying the effects of american convenience, but then constantly complaining that american life should be easier. Not to add that he doesn't seem to admit that in any country--particularly where you have many individual law makers with different views, addressing only a handful of issues at a time--you will have all kinds of contradictions and non sensical laws; britain included. Even his views on american norms didn't always relate with me. He also makes sweeping generalizations. For example, he essentially labels the post office as bumbling because they returned a letter to him that he didn't put the address on, and implys that it isn't in the same league as the british version as far as mailing letters goes. Which, I guess is said with tongue in cheek; but then, maybe not. And it's all based on one experience he had. I'd call that a misconception. Some of his experiences though, are right on and funny, albeit caricatures, on american life and norms. Still others, are only relatable to foreigners and immigrants, and all those who think everything was perfect back when they were kids.

If you take his complaints in the context of being written for british entertainment, in a weekly essay format, and that realistically he was probably struggling just to pop out an article, it's pretty good. His writing is, as always, witty and entertaining. And exaggeration is a key to his humor. So his tone with american life probably isn't as severe as his essays would make it seem. But who knows.

Either way, this book is more for his fans who just can't get enough of Bryson I think. And with all those things working against it with reguards to my opinion, I still enjoyed it, even with it's disagreeable content, because I just like his writing style, top to bottom. And can't wait to read some other Bryson work.

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