Bought with some birthday money, BB is always good value, hopefully this memoir is as funny and insightful as his travel writing.

(15/12/10) Bryson does well to make this non-travel memoir fun by making a lot of stuff up, or exaggerating for comic effect, more like a pretend-moir, or maybe, pretend...moi? Anyway, this is an every-boys story of growing up in a safe but dull mid-west (or mid-anything) city. He obviously loves Des Moines, the people, the 'small-town' closeness and heightened oddness of it all, so that the last chapter, 'Farewell', is genuinely a sad remembrance of a lost time and place. As well as the normal trials of growing up normal, there are 2 other great themes, his love and respect for journalist parents, and the incredible boom-time which was the USA in the 1950's. It reminded me a lot of the sheer energy, exuberance and world-beating consumption of China 50 years later, maybe the East does deserve it's time in the sun?

And, a last word from a reproduction proclamation, BB getting the key to Des Moines, "Bill's razor-sharp wit gently impales our midwestern need for nostalgia, no matter how mundane, and makes us see ourselves in a new light."

I'm taking this along to today's Ipswich bookcrosser's meet-up, to share and pass on :)

Ihave thoroughly enjoyed every Bill Bryson book I have ever read and this was no exception. In fcat it makes me wonder why I haven't tracked them all down rather than simply picking them up when they happen to cross my path.

BookGroupMan's summary is, as always, difficult to add to. However I must mention that Bryson's regret about the spread of 'Anytown-ism' touched a particular chord with me as I ponder how Leiston might be affected by the impending arrival of Tesco.

To be left on the bookshelf with all the other books at this new OBCZ.