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    Notes From a Small Island
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    Notes From a Small Island
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    Notes From a Small Island
    Audiobook12 hours

    Notes From a Small Island

    Written by Bill Bryson

    Narrated by Ron McLarty

    3.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

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    About this audiobook

    Grab your umbrella and join best-selling author Bill Bryson for a grand tour through the heartland of the United Kingdom. As he wanders through tiny villages and bustling cities, his irreverent travelogue will keep you laughing out loud and eager to explore what lies just around the next corner. Before he returns to the United States after nearly two decades on British soil, Bryson decides to take a farewell jaunt through his adopted homeland. But his plans to neatly traverse the island by foot, bus, and train are soon thwarted. On weekends, odd train and bus schedules leave him stranded in isolated communities with damp, moldering inns. And as a destination beckons above the rooftops, a maze of city streets leads him further away. Amidst the difficulties, Bryson encounters quirky age-old customs, charming architecture, and salt-of-the-earth inhabitants. His uproarious social commentary and Ron McLarty’s warm and witty performance will leave you feeling as if you have actually been travelling across the enchanting island.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books Audio
    Release dateJan 1, 1999
    ISBN9781464034008

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    Reviews for Notes From a Small Island

    3.5/5

    92 ratings101 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I usually like Bryson's books, but I didn't much care for this one. Usually his rambling is funny. Not this time,it was just boring rambling.
    • 4/5
      A little dull in places but in the end entertaining--with lots of humorous comments
    • 5/5
      I picked this up as I had enjoyed Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods". I was not disappointed.Bryson is taking one last tour of England and parts of before he moves back to the U.S. with his family. The move is so that the kids will get to know their roots...I think.It is a solo tour to visit places he has been and some he hasn't but wanted to go. He uses the British Rail and walking as his choice of transportation. It isn't just the big cities he visits, but it is the small villages too. His commentary and musings of all things British (and Scottish) are entertaining and sometimes thought provoking. Why do the British call private schools public schools? Why is it called a 'jumper' in England and a 'sweater' in America? The politeness of the English by the way they preface requests with "I'm sorry..." and other observations. Many are tongue-in-cheek, and all seem in a humourous vein.His view and descriptions of his travels are from a person who really does love a country that he lived and worked in for a good length of time. Not derogatory but curious.I enjoy his style of writing and observations. A light-hearted read.
    • 5/5
      Loved this book!
    • 4/5
      A couple of decades after first setting foot in Great Britain and preparing to move his family to the U.S., Bill Bryson spent several weeks traveling from one end of the island to the other. Some places on his itinerary were familiar and dear, while he hadn't set foot in others since his arrival some twenty years earlier. First impressions and other memories intermingle with the contemporary travel narrative. Bryson's affection for his adopted country is apparent. The humor is as much at his own expense as at the expense of others. I felt a particular kinship with Bryson as another American who made a home in Great Britain as a young adult. Both natives of Great Britain and Anglophiles will find a lot to like here.
    • 5/5
      To my mind, Bryson is the premier travel writer around today, and ?Notes From a Small Island? is perhaps the best example of his travelogues. As an American in the UK who married a local and settled down, Bryson is able to spot the absurdities of British life like no one else. Following Bryson around his then-current journey around the UK, intermixed with flashbacks of his earlier travels around the UK, Bryson seems to be having the trip that I really should have had, were the situation different. Whether he?s negotiating the weird rules surrounding guest houses, his career as a staffer in a psychiatric hospital or the incomprehensible accents of Glasgow, Bryson is always worth a laugh.
    • 5/5
      I don't always share his taste in architecture and nostalgia, but I always enjoy hearing what he has to say. He writes well, observes little things, and is sensitive to everyday experiences. (9/10)
    • 2/5
      Bryson's books are really all about Bryson. In this book he'd spout one stereotype about the British people in one chapter, and in the next chapter he'd say Brits are so xxx" and the 'xxx' would be in direct contradiction to the previous assertion. Every time I laughed I felt guilty for doing so."
    • 3/5
      Alas, I have to agree with Linda S. But don't give up on Bill Bryson: read A Walk in the Woods, about his attempt to hike the Applachian Trail. Hilarious!
    • 3/5
      A light and very funny read.
    • 5/5
      Before returning to his native United States after a sojourn of some twenty years in England, Bryson decided to take a trip around that "small island." The hysterical comments in this book are the result. The British loved it so much it was a best-seller for months, and they turned it into a TV series. The book even includes a glossary of English terms. For example, do you know the difference between a village and a hamlet? One is a small town where people live, the other a play by Shakespeare!

      Bryson is certainly not your average travel writer - as anyone who has read my reviews of his other books knows - and despite his often scathing wit, it's never done with malice, even when very critical of a subject. What astounds me is Bryson's vigor and willingness to put up with all sorts of cold and wet weather. He made his trek during the off-season, i.e., late October, not an especially delightful time of year in Britain. He did not take a car, relying solely on buses and British Rail, a decision that often forced him to make long, out-of-the-way walks of as far as twenty miles, either because schedules didn't
      coincide, or the irregular bus did not run during the off-season.

      He delightfully intermingles political commentary with travelogue. He visits Blackpool, for example, where there are long beaches - that officially don't exist. "I am not making this up. In the late 1980s, when the European Community issued a directive about the standards of ocean-borne sewage, it turned out that nearly every British seaside town failed to come anywhere near even the minimum compliance levels. Most of the bigger resorts like Blackpool went right off the edge of the turdometer, or whatever they measure these things with. This presented an obvious problem to Mrs. Thatcher's government, which was loath to spend money on British beaches when there were perfectly good beaches in Mustique and Barbados, so it drew up an official decree -- this is so bizarre I can hardly stand it, but I swear it is true -- that Brighton, Blackpool, Scarborough, and many other leading resorts did not have, strictly speaking, beaches. Christ knows what it then termed these expanses of sand -- intermediate sewage buffers, I suppose -- but in any case it disposed of the problem without either solving it or costing the treasury a penny, which is of course the main thing, or in the case of the present government, the only thing."

      Then there's British Rail. On his way to Manchester, "we crept a mile or so out of the station, then sat for a long time for no evident reason. Eventually, a voice announced that because of faults further up the line this train would terminate in Stockport, which elicited a general groan. Finally, after about twenty minutes, the train falteringly started forward and limped across the green countryside. At each station the voice apologized for the delay and announced anew that the train would terminate in Stockport. When at last we reached Stockport, ninety minutes late, I expected everyone to get off, but no one moved, so neither did I. Only one passenger, a Japanese fellow, dutifully disembarked, then watched in dismay as the train proceeded on, without explanation and without him, to Manchester."

      No Bryson should be left unread.
    • 3/5
      Armchair travel. Author lived in England almost 20 years. Humor is enjoyable. He could leave out the swearing and sex and it would be even better. It is a glimpse of England, written as a farewell. He travels by foot and public transportation.
    • 3/5
      An interesting look at Britain by someone about to move back to the States.

      A lighter tone sometimes in the reading of this book would have suited it better. Sometimes the author sounds rather petulant
    • 4/5
      This is one of my all time favorites. I received this book as a gift after finishing an internship in London (I'm American) about 12 years ago. Over the years I've read it several times but now that I've been a full time UK resident for 4 years it has even more meaning to me.

      Bryson doesn't just travel, he gives an articulated insight into the British people in general. His love for the UK and its inhabitants is clear throughout.

      In fact, I was so inspired by this book that I got my London based self to Snowshill Manor, mentioned in his book. It couldn't have been better!

      Please read this book - you can borrow my copy, just be sure to give it back!
    • 2/5
      Listened to the first few discs of this... just couldn't get into it. I have trouble with authors who try too hard to be clever and cute and sardonic and wry and etc... some funny stuff, but just a little too much for me.
    • 4/5
      Notes from a Small island tells the story of the road trip that Bill Bryson made around Britain in the 1990s shortly before he returned to his native America. Although he can see the faults of Britain, he cannot deny that he loves the place too. This is a warm and witty book and I enjoyed Bryson's interactions with people more than anything. I will be going on to read The Road to Little Dribbling to see what he makes of our island 20 years on.
    • 2/5
      My husband gives the book a ten. He finds Bryson's style of writing very amusing. I on the other hand didn't laugh as frequently while reading the book. The man presents himself as a bit of a narrow minded twit too much of the time. If one or two people he knows does something strange, then all people like those few must be exactly the same. If his poor planning for the weather, accommodations, travel arragements whatever result in a delayed stay or a poor night, it's the town's fault!
    • 5/5
      Notes from a Small Island is Bill Bryson's autobiography in which he travels around the United Kingdom, his home for twenty years. During his voyages, Bryson lives in not-so-pleasant hostels and hotels and meets people from all walks of life. Bryson is a master storyteller, his ability to turn a phrase in unparalleled. And he injects humor into his writing, particularly when describing people.
    • 5/5
      Before moving to America with his wife and kids, Bill Bryson decides to take a trip around England and see the countryside much as he did in the '70s when he first arrived. From Dover to Inverness, he explores small towns, enjoys their history and quirks, and bemoans the lack of imagination of 1960s architects.Chronologically this comes just before a book I read late last year, I'm a Stranger Here Myself. It was a little bit odd to have read them "out of order" (I'm a Stranger Here Myself talks about the quirks of living in America after 20 years of being in the U.K., while this is sort of his swan song before leaving), but it was fun to compare the way he mulls over quirky bits of culture and a country's personality, so to speak. It's part travel literature part memoir part humor in a way that I've only ever read in Bill Bryson's own books. I really enjoyed it, I really want to go a few of the places he mentioned now, and I'm really looking forward to his latest, The Road to Little Dribbling.
    • 4/5
      This book is a splendid piece of work by Bryson. I read his Shakespeare biography years ago (in a Danish translation), and was smitten by the discreet wit that emanates from his writing, even in translation. So, when I stumbled upon a well-worn paperback copy of this one at a flea market, I pounced upon it, and never looked back. It is a howl of a read, a mix between a roadmovie in writing and a miniature odyssey embarked upon by a repatriated American with a distinct love for his adoptive homeland. What makes the book so poignant is that the journey he goes on is his own little "farewell tour" on the eve of him moving back to the US with his UK-born wife and children.From the disappointing discrepancies between children's litterature and reality, through a colourful description of pre-Murdoch Fleet Street and all the way to blue-haired Corrie fans on a studio tour, Bryson takes you along on a splendid journey through the essence of Avalon. Highly recommended read!
    • 2/5
      I very nearly didn't finish this after about the sixth time Bryson arrives in some British town, gets to his hotel, finds it or the staff lacking in some way, walks outside, finds the town or the people or the food lacking in some way, eats a subpar meal, goes back to the hotel, goes to bed, gets up, complains about the breakfast, wanders around the town some more finding things to whine about, lather, rinse, repeat. It all got to be annoying after not very long. Eventually I guess I got into the rhythm of it and didn't mind so much, and I did finish the book, but it proved rather more of a slog than I wanted.Bryson's humor is of that variety which makes me laugh on occasion, but the funny bits here are stuck in amongst so many moments where he's behaving like an idiot, complaining pointlessly, or being a chauvinistic twit that it was hard to separate the amusing from the obnoxious. While some of anecdotes and inserted historical trivia were fascinating, I'm still not sure whether the book was entirely worth the time.
    • 4/5
      Bryson is an American humorist who married an Englishwoman and started a family with her in the UK. This book marks the occasion when, after some 20 years, he was about to move Stateside with his British family. So the book documents his lonely, eccentric farewell tour of the scepter?d isle. He spends most of his time taking trains to towns that Yanks seldom visit, at a time of year when most Britons stay home. Now and then he'll stumble on something like a historic site or tourist attraction, but as often as not it?s locked up tight, closed for the day or for the season. But hey, this isn?t Fodor?s or Lonely Planet. The point of the book is to see Britain, not as a tourist, but through the eyes of the author, who presents himself as a befuddled, moody, and flatulent pub crawler. I mean, what's not to love? Throughout, Bryson affects a cunning naivet?, constantly putting himself down as if by accident, both during his tour and while reflecting on his earlier life in Britain. For example, here is his fond reminiscence about the moment, during an internship 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 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. (Since reading it, my wife and I have adopted "Oo, lovely!" as an ironic catchphrase.) I'm not quite sure whether Anglophiles will be more likely to enjoy or resent this book. As a moderate Anglophile, I thought it was fun, except at moments when Bryson began 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, each as humorless as the last. Ah, well, it was still worth it. The book would probably reward a second reading.
    • 4/5
      I first read this in eleventh grade in high school, after randomly picking it off a list our English teacher presented to us in the hope it would be some kind of desert island tale. The island in question, of course, is actually Great Britain; Notes From A Small Island is a travelogue covering Bryson?s ?valedictory tour? around the nation he made his home for nearly twenty years.Any Australian growing up naturally develops a sort of hazy idea of what the UK is like, in the same way that anybody anywhere grows up with a hazy idea of what the US is like, but Notes From A Small Island probably filled in my mental map a bit more than Harry Potter or Monty Python films. Bryson travels by train across the length and breadth of England, Scotland and Wales, filling the pages with his usual wit.I had never had a biscuit of such rocklike cheerlessness. It tasted like something you would give a budgie to strengthen its beak.At the Old Times building on Gray?s Inn road, the canteen had been in a basement room that had the charm and ambience of a submarine and the food had been slopped out by humourless drones who always brought to mind moles in aprons.Some of the most enjoyable parts of the book are early on, when Bryson sprinkles his modern-day trip around Britain with memories of his early life there in the 1970s and 1980s, such as when he was involved in the Wapping dispute:How odd, I thought, that a total stranger was about to pull me from my car and beat me mushy for the benefit of printworkers he had never met, who would mostly despise him as an unkempt hippie, would certainly never let him into their own union, and who had enjoyed decades of obscenely inflated earnings without once showing collective support for any other union, including, on occasion, provincial branches of their own NGA. Simultaneously it occurred to me that I was about to squander my own small life for the benefit of a man who had, without apparent hesitation, given up his own nationality out of economic self-interest, who didn?t know who I was, would as lightly have discarded me if a machine could be found to do my job, and whose idea of maximum magnanimity was to hand out a six-ounce can of beer and a limp sandwich.These anecdotes dry up later in the book, and Notes From A Small Island loses some of its lustre as it becomes simply a journey through Britain?s hotels, restaurants and train stations. Bryson?s tirade against modern architecture also becomes tiresome, even for a reader who agrees with him entirely, as I do. Although on the subject of agreement, I was interested to see that apparently even in the 1990s there was popular backing for the bizarre idea that upon the Queen?s death, Prince Charles should bow out and pass the throne directly to the younger, more attractive and more popular Prince William. I agree with Bryson:It seemed to me to miss the point. If you are going to have a system of hereditary privilege, then surely you have to take what comes your way no matter how ponderous the poor fellow may be or how curious his taste in mistresses.Bryson?s attitude towards Britain can sometimes be overly sentimental. It?s clear that he loves this country, to the point where he sometimes verges upon British exceptionalism. It is utter nonsense to argue that people in other countries don?t know how to queue, or that they don?t laugh or smile as much the British. I sometimes wonder how much of this perceived difference between nations in the English-speaking first world (Britain, Ireland, the US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia) is due to generational differences ? since kids in today?s generation all grew up watching the same American TV and spend plenty of time on the internet speaking to people from all over ? and how much of it is due to the fact that people who think there are vast differences between the US and Britain have never been to, say, China or Africa.Notes From A Small Island is a solid Bryson book. Like many of his other books, it can become repetitive and focus a little too much on the banal experiences of travel, and if his sense of humour is not your cup of tea than you might find him cynical or ill-tempered. But I enjoy him a fair bit ? it?s easy, funny reading.
    • 3/5
      Not laugh out loud funny but an ok read, need to stop reading Bryson for a while as most others seem to find his literature funnier than i am. Enjoyable read but not great
    • 3/5
      While I enjoyed the book, I get the feeling I would have enjoyed it much more if my familiarity of Britain extended beyond what's essentially on the front cover. I know he probably wasn't writing for my demographic, but a skosh more context would have been nice at times. I'll definitely be picking up more by Bryson.
    • 2/5
      This wasn't dreadful, but I can't say I consistently enjoyed it. Bryson and I share many interests, such as bad architecture, weird place names, and traveling around the British coast during the off-season by way of unreliable public transport. I did find this book sometimes funny and sometimes insightful, and mostly I was amused to discover that the Exeter St. David's train station had the same collection of lame, unappealing tourist brochures in the mid-nineties as it does today. Some things never change.

      However, Bryson conveys the monotony of identical British high streets in crappy weather connected by counter-intuitive train routes a little too well, his humor was too reliant on his making himself sound like a jerk (I guess this is English humor), and his prose has that journalistic sameness which is the bane of good nonfiction. He uses the same five phrases to express his approbation of any given town and adores the word "fractionally." The polite term for this kind of writing is "mannerly" but I was not a big fan.

      Maybe this was just not the right book of Bryson's to start with? Nevertheless, I don't think I'll be in a hurry to pick him up soon.
    • 5/5
      Bryson has a humorous way of capturing the true spirit of the places he visits and the people he meets without being patronising, gushy or derisive. This book in particular is laugh-out-loud funny and truly does capture all that is wonderful, quirky, interesting and downright peculiar about the UK. I first read the book between my first and second trip to England and I found I enjoyed my second trip much more as I deliberately picked out some Bryson highlights to visit. His genuine enjoyment of even mundane things is palpable and contagious and I found myself looking at things with a far less jaded eye. I re-read this book every couple of years and find something new to delight me each time.
    • 4/5
      Summary: Bill Bryson moved to Britain in the seventies, met his wife, and lived in the UK for about 20 years. Now, when he is at the point of moving his family to the United States, he sets out to travel the country that he loves so well before he leaves it behind. He travels from south to north, mostly by train, to see the many disparate corners of England. He finds that despite its small geographic size, it is a country bursting with quirks and charm, history and modernity, and while there is much at which Bryson can poke fun, there is also much to love.Review: I picked this book up because I needed something fun, something light, something which could keep me engaged when I was distractible, but which didn't have an intricate plot that I needed to follow. And Bill Bryson is perfect for that, particularly Bryson's travel writing. Every chapter or two he's somewhere else, so I didn't get lost when I needed to put it down and pick it up later, but I find his writing so engaging that I could listen for long stretches without wanting to switch to something else.Plus, Bryson's funny enough that it was able to lift my mood whenever I went back to it. This book was somewhat repetitive; it could easily be subtitled "In Which Bill Bryson gets cranky at modern architecture and the British Rail timetable system". In fact, some of Bryson's grumping is so repetitive that occasionally it was easy to lose track of exactly which little town that had replaced its historic buildings with bland glass-and-cement storefronts was currently making him wax curmudgeonish. This was probably not helped by the fact that as much as I am a cultural Anglophile, I have only been able to travel there briefly, and am not awesome at British geography. I could have really used a map with the various places that Bryson visits, or at least some of the larger ones, but that's always a problem with audiobooks. (Not that the paper version has a map either, but had I been reading it I could have at least pulled up Google Earth.)I also wonder how well this book has aged. Bryson's trip is a portrait of Britain in the mid-90s; I wonder how much things have changed in the intervening 20 years. I only noticed one place where the age of the book was immediately obvious (to a non-native); it briefly mentions Princess Diana in the present tense. But while the fundamental nature of Britain may not have changed over the centuries, I have to believe that at least some aspects of its national character have evolved with the times. (Hell, when this was written, Harry Potter wasn't even a gleam in Rowling's eye.) I don't think that Bryson could write another book updating his impressions without retreading worn ground, but it would certainly be an interesting comparison. Overall, I enjoyed this book, and it was a great fit for my mood at the time. It's clear that Bryson loves England, and that his frustrations are born out of that love, and that makes it a simultaneously fun and charming read. As far as his country-in-a-book books go, I think I liked In a Sunburned Country a little bit better, since it was a bit more varied, but Bill Bryson travel books are always reliably good. 4 out of 5 stars.
    • 3/5
      I'm a bit of an Anglophile, plan to do a tour similar to the one described here, have visited London a few times and enjoyed it immensely, and read a number of novels by Brit authors - so I was looking forward to reading this book very much. And was very disappointed before I got to page 100. Bryson had lived in England for 20 years and was preparing to return to his native USA soon after this trip - and perhaps that was part of the problem for me. He was too British. He didn't have the sense of excitement, awe, wonderment, discovery that a person less familiar with the villages and cities would. And in exchange, we got a fair amount of boring detail. Some of the book was amusing, eg, a Brits penchant for discussing directions from here to there ad nauseum, but there were not enough such moments. And I felt that major portions of his own trip had bored him. Other passages were a bit nasty, e.g., his description of putting down a McDonald's clerk in Edinburgh - what was he thinking when he included this cranky episode? Someone gave me Bryson's "A Walk in the Forest" or whatever - I think it'll be a long while before I crack that open.....
    • 2/5
      Mr. Bryson wanders around England from South to North, stopping in towns of all sizes. He rails against the artless urban development and throws complements around where needed. Not his best book - by far. There isn't enough plot to hold it together and not enough "stories" to merit the length of the book. If you are traveling England anywhere near his route, though, it would be worth a quick read.