More Bill Bryson . . .

This week I read Bill Bryson's "Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America". Bryson is up to his same old antics as he travels across the country revisiting places his father took him as a child and searching for the perfect small town.

Bryson traveled across the U.S. during the late 1980s, after living in England for twenty years. Even though he is originally from Iowa, you can tell that he has been away for a long time. Most of the book revolves around him bemoaning the death of the small town and the American tourist. Each destination he manages to find something that reminds him of days gone by, but mostly he marvels at how Americans take their historic places and national parks for granted. Yet after he is finished traveling he comes to realize how wonderful his boyhood home of Iowa really is and that sometimes you can come home.

I always like what Bill Bryson has to say. He doesn't mince words or sugarcoat anything, he writes about what he really thinks of the places he travels. While I may not always agree with what he says (i.e. driving through Ohio is torture), I do understand why he sees the world the way he does. The striking theme throughout the book is how the tourism industry has completely taken over many of the country's historical and natural monuments. I would like to think that twenty years later we have gotten better, but I suspect we have just gotten worse.

If you would like to read "Lost Continent" by Bill Bryson, you can find it at your local library or at Barnes and Noble.