A fun read, except at moments when Bryson begins sounding like the Prince of Wales whinging on about soulless modern architecture. Two or three such lectures might even have been endurable, but I think there were at least six. Ah well.

Bryson is an American who married an Englishwoman and had lived in the UK for something like 20 years when he wrote this book. At the time, he was about to move Stateside with his British family, so this book documents his lonely farewell tour of the scepter’d isle. Most of the time he takes trains to towns that Yanks seldom visit, at a time of year when most Britons stay home, and when he does stumble on something like a historic site or tourist attraction, as often as not it’s locked up tight, closed either for the day or for the season. But hey, this isn’t Fodor’s. The point of the book is to see Britain through the eyes of this befuddled, flatulent, moody pub crawler - i.e., the alleged author. Bryson is constantly putting himself down as if by accident. Consider his fond reminiscence about the moment, years ago, while interning at a mental hospital, when he first laid eyes on his future bride:

At the far end of the room, there moved a pretty young nurse of clear and radiant goodness, caring for these helpless wrecks with boundless reserves of energy and compassion — guiding them to a chair, brightening their day with chatter, wiping dribble from their chins — and I thought, This is just the sort of person I need.

Of course, the real Bill Bryson is presumably not as clueless as the persona he uses in his books. He is, however, a genuine Anglophile, and his writing has an English flavor. The book seems to be directed as much toward British as American readers. I enjoyed it very much. I gave Down Under 10 stars; I’ll give this one eight.