SubscribeA Short History of the American Stomach
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A Short History of the American Stomach
by Frederick Kaufman - Publisher: Mariner
- Year: 2009
- Pages: 224
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- №55
When I got Frederick Kaufman’s A Short History of the American Stomach, I had expected something along the lines of Tom Standage’s A History of the World in 6 Glasses, perhaps with the cultural slant of Bill Bryson’s Made in America.
I’m a Stranger Here Myself
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I'm a Stranger Here Myself
by Bill Bryson - Publisher: Broadway
- Year: 2000
- Pages: 304
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- №44
I’m perfectly well aware that Bill Bryson can be funny. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid had me laugh out loud; A Walk in the Woods, too, was hilarious.
But most of Bryson’s writing—and humor—is in long form. That is, Bryson writes books. There was a time, however, when he wrote a sort-of weekly column for a British newspaper (The Mail on Sunday Night and Day during the years he lived with his family in New Hampshire (he’s since moved back to England). I’m a Stranger Here Myself is about Americana, but not in the same way as The Lost Continent, nor is it about America in the same way that Notes from a Small Island was about England.
A Voyage Long and Strange
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A Voyage Long and Strange
by Tony Horwitz - Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
- Year: 2008
- Pages: 464
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- №41
I’m something of an iconoclast; I used to enjoy telling people (smugly, as only an over-informed grade-school boy can be) that George Washington was the 8th president. I took fewer cheap thrills from knowing that Columbus wasn’t necessarily the saint we so often make him out to be, though I stopped of damning European imperialists and other overindulgent tropes of that sort—more on this later.
Made In America
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Made in America
by Bill Bryson - Publisher: Harper Perennial
- Year: 1991/1996
- Pages: 432
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- №32
There are few things I like better than a good book about linguistics or etymology. The only thing, I think, that could possibly make one any better is if it’s written by one of my favorite authors—namely Bill Bryson.
In fact, Made in America was my introduction to Bryson: I purchased the book (a mint-condition hardcover) for $0.25 at the library and absolutely devoured it. Not only did the book initiate a long and storied appreciation of Bryson’s writing, but I think I can honestly credit the book with inspiring my lifelong love of language.
The Mother Tongue
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The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way
by Bill Bryson - Publisher: Harper Perennial
- Year: 1991
- Pages: 272
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- №57
Bill Bryson is a noted fan of the English language. My first real exposure to him was a $0.25 hardcover copy of Made of America, which was all it took to cement a deep and abiding love for everything the man writes. The Mother Tongue is his first attempt at linguistic writing, and while perhaps I didn’t enjoy it as much as Made In America, it is nonetheless a wonderful book.
Bryson starts by considering just how versatile, how widespread, and how confusing the English language is, and how these very traits seem, to some degree, mutually exclusive. Yet puzzingly, a language which is relatively recent in its current incarnation (certainly recent compared to its Latinate cousin and its Germanic forebears and ProtoIndoEuropean great-grandfeather), has managed to become a force to be reckoned with throughout the world. Ironically, and I couldn’t help but notice this, Bryson’s message in the book—that English is, also ironically, the new lingua franca–is to some degree going away. Certainly, if conservatives are any trustworthy source, America itself is today being overrun with Spanish-speaking immigrants other “impure” dialects.
Neither Here Nor There
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Neither Here Nor There
by Bill Bryson - Publisher: Harper Perennial
- Year: 1993
- Pages: 256
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- №56
When my girlfriend went to Germany this summer, her tales of Germany’s quirks made me think immediately of Bill Bryson and one of his early books, Neither Here Nor There. Realizing that I last read it before the start of this meme back in 2005, I thought it would be the perfect time to dust it off and enjoy it all over again.
There are startling bits about Neither Here Nor There, especially if you’ve read a lot of Bryson’s more recent work. It’s downright bawdy at times, which doesn’t bother me, but does come as a bit of a shock. The only other book which approaches this style is A Walk in the Woods, I suppose because these are both largely narrative books, rather than the more detached kind of exposition you might find in one of his books about language.
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