The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America
Registered by miumaumou of Pori, Satakunta Finland on 12/20/2011
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
2 journalers for this copy...
From the back:
I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.
And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of smiling village where the movies from his youth were set. However the smiling villages were no more. What he saw instead on his return journey was a series of horrific burgs, which he renamed Smellville, Fartville, Coleslaw, Coma and Doldrum. At best his search led him to Anywhere, USA; a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by obese and slow-witted hicks with a fondness for synthetic fibres. He discovered a continent that was doubly lost: lost to itself because he found it blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a foreigner in his own country.
Paperback
I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.
And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of smiling village where the movies from his youth were set. However the smiling villages were no more. What he saw instead on his return journey was a series of horrific burgs, which he renamed Smellville, Fartville, Coleslaw, Coma and Doldrum. At best his search led him to Anywhere, USA; a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by obese and slow-witted hicks with a fondness for synthetic fibres. He discovered a continent that was doubly lost: lost to itself because he found it blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a foreigner in his own country.
Paperback
Journal Entry 2 by miumaumou at Sweepstake, A Bookcrossing member -- Controlled Releases on Friday, January 27, 2012
I've enjoyed a couple of Bill Bryson's books, but I haven't read this one yet. Thank you so much for the book and the other treats you sent me!
This was a fun read and made me wonder what his assessment would be now (after another 30 years or so). It's slated for wild release soon.
Journal Entry 5 by ikkinlala at Little Library in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada on Saturday, October 16, 2021
Released 2 yrs ago (10/16/2021 UTC) at Little Library in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
I'm planning to leave this in one of the Little Free Libraries on my walk tonight.