Reviewed by Anna Merzlyak
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson was my first ‘real’ travel book, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve made my way through several Lonely Planet guides and a Let’s Go, and even a guide on New Zealand, whose name I tend to block out due to its utter uselessness, but as I read Bryson, it dawned on me that this indeed, is a completely different cup of tea. In fact, this narrative can be likened to a rambling mass email sent out to your friends while you are away. Filling their inboxes with your wondrous travels and making them insanely jealous, because they, like most of the sane world, are stuck at work, while you are tramping about in the faraway.

Bryson takes us on a seven-week journey around England, where he spent 20 years of his life before a move back to the States. (Editor’s note: Last we heard, Bill was back in England.) Besides the geographical locomotion, we are taken on a journey down memory lane, and see how Bryson gets enamored with the country where everybody calls him ‘love,’ people drive on the left side, and beer is flowing by the pint.

The trip for Bryson is “a bit like wandering through a much-loved home for the last time.” Thus the book is full of small moments of cozy nostalgia, and at times puts one in a bubblebath-in-the-rainy-evening kind of a mood. However, Bryson is definitely a character, and through his amblings and rumblings, he makes us smile, chortle, and laugh out loud, from the philosophical explorations of life as a pigeon, to his musings of charming lunatics at his first place of employment, and from attempts to get into the condom-like rain gear. That, apparently, is very useful when walking in the ever persistent rain.

Being as I am in the planning stages of my trip to England, besides personable, relatable and funny, I found this book to be immensely educational. Bryson stuffs the pages with historical anecdotes, such as the story of the mining town of Ashington in the North, or the fact that we owe both the Black Death, and sea bathing, to a town called Weymouth on the South coast. I was also finally able to place familiar names in a more concrete setting, like George Orwell who is buried in a small graveyard near Oxford, or Lewis Carroll, who walked with his Alice in a handsome Victorian resort of Llandudno just a train ride away from the “Liverpool turds”. The book is also bursting with hints of beauteous places that should not be missed such as the Salisbury Cathedral, or the ones that should, such as Blackpool.

So whether you are like me, planning to traverse the ocean for a proper cup of tea and a pasty, or are just looking for a bit of armchair travel, Bryson makes for an excellent read.