Re: The Lost Continent

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Comments:
: Hi Rich,
: Thanks for that.  Bill Bryson is one of my favourite authors! I love his books.  I haven't read this one yet, but "Mother Tongue", "Made in America" and "Notes from a Small Island" are three of my favs.  I love his style.  I get in trouble on the train in to work by laughing out load as I read his stuff.  So I guess I better go get this one!

: Cheers,
: Sarah M.

: : A  thoroughly amusing and readable book by Bill Bryson, "The Lost Continent" ...

: : Mr. Bryson, a journalist, was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa. He later moved to England and has lived there for many years. In 1987, he returned to the US to seek out the "perfect" American town ... the one you always see in the movies, or especially, on TV. So, he hops in a Chevette in hopes of finding it. 13,978 miles, and 38 states, later (let's see, off the top of my head I'd say he might have missed Florida, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Oregon, Washington, North Dakota, New Jersey, and one more ... of the lower 48 ... maybe West Virginia?) ...

: : Oh, excuse me, what's this got to do with "The Last of the Mohicans"? Not much, really, but ... he did visit Cooperstown, New York in his travels. He also found himself in western North Carolina, even stopping in at the Biltmore Estate (though he found the admission fee too steep and so moved on). Too, he visited Custer Battlefield in Montana, one of my favorite places to be. Though his assessment of Custer is far removed from my own, he did find the Battlefield a moving experience ...

: : ... so, he travels all over the place, small town, big city, historical homes & sites, mostly on the backroads, to see if this dream town might really exist. His journal, this book, is a marvelous & hilarious, look into the US ... sometimes appearing to have been written in the Doctor Mary School of Journalism mode.

: : The book had been laying around here for years, Elaine having read it a few years back. I happened to pick it up the other day, and couldn't put it down. It just sucked me in. Great book. Read it if you have a chance. I don't think you'll be sorry!

: : Here's a passage that displays this man's humor ... I hope no one takes offense! He is explaining the origin of the name "Grand Tetons," a Wyoming mountain range, and how they came to be named after women's breasts:

: : "At any rate, the French explorers who passed through northwestern Wyoming took one look at the mountains and said, 'Zut alors! Hey, Jacques, clock those mountains. They look just like my wife's tetons.' Isn't it typical of the French to reduce everything to a level of sexual vulgarity? Thank goodness they didn't discover the Grand Canyon, that's all I can say. And the remarkable thing is that the Tetons look about as much like tits as ... well, as a frying pan or a pair of hiking boots. In a word, they don't look like tits at all, except perhaps to desperately lonely men who have been away from home for a very long time. They looked a little bit like tits to me."

: : I guess that's MY thought for the day!


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