Book Review: Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson

So there's three things in life I have learned since marrying a Brit;

1. I receive a lot of England themed items as gifts (double decker bus change purses, London teacup sets, etc.), which I'm totally ok with because they're super adorable and I'm a bit of an Anglophile
2. When I ask my husband what certain British slang means he'll giggle and shake his head muttering 'Silly Canadian" under his breath.
3. Cockney rhyming slang is the most irritating, nerve grating abomination to the English language.

With our impending trip to the UK I figured it was time I finally get around to reading the copy of Notes From a Small Island that had been collecting dust on my TBR shelf, maybe give me some inspiration for things I'd like to do and see...

3. Notes From a Small Island by Bill Bryson

Genre: Travel Writing

Rating: 3/5

Note's From a Small Island finds Bill Bryson taking a trip around the UK in seven weeks travelling only by means of public transportation-except for a brief excursion in Northern Scotland where no one actually lives and public transit is therefore non-existent,  as his last hurrah to the UK before him and his family return to America after nearly two decades of living in England.

Bryson hits up the usual suspects; London, Manchester, Edinburgh and the likes, but also enjoys frequent forays into smaller towns and hamlets that most readers (unless they're from said smaller town or hamlet) have probably never heard of and could never find on a trusty ordinance survey map either!

He reminisced about certain things that only a foreigner living in the UK could truly appreciate, like the senior citizen population's love affair with walking, as a past time - not a means of transportation. Or the fact that central heating isn't necessarily standard procedure on the rainy little island. That fact by the way, holds true still even 14 years after Bryson made his trip, I have stayed in my fair share of drafty accommodations in London where the archaic looking radiator on the wall makes you question whether it's safer to slowly freeze to death by not turning it on, or risk being burned alive when the clanking metal contraption takes on a life of it's own.

This book has left me torn on whether or not I actually liked it. On the one hand it was Bryson's usual chuckle inducing, dry wit that I loved so much. But on the other I felt very much like he was just a broken record some times, griping on about the same damn thing in every town or city; we get it, you're a bit of an architecture snob!

Overall, I would have to say I did enjoy it and it has me looking forward to our trip back to the UK this spring, but I don't think it is something I would read again.