The Lost Continent - Bill Bryson

Right from the very start of the novel, “I come from Des Moines. Somebody has to,” you get the distinct impression that Bill Bryson is someone who has ambition which extends further than just settling down into what he suggests by that short opening phrase, is a mundane lifestyle within Des Moines. He suggests this by his desire to leave America entirely as soon as he was able. Life in American for Bill Bryson is not exciting and interesting, especially as he was brought up in the town of Des Moines. American commercial culture is constantly satirised by him and he uses this combined with a certain irony and sarcasm to achieve a comic effect. However his ...  Read the complete review

Probably most British readers will first have come across his work through his book about the UK itself, "Notes from a Small Island". That is certainly a fine book, and well worth a read. But I do wonder whether his earlier work "The Lost Continent" (now 20 years old, amazingly) might not in fact be even better. I was lucky enough to read this first some years ago, before the "Bryson boom", and so had no preconceptions of what the author's work was like. I'm actually quite grateful for that, too, since otherwise I might not have had such a nice surprise! In essence, this book is a travelogue, following in Bryson's wheeltracks as ...  Read the complete review

I travel lots and one of the reasons is that I have nothing to tie me down. At the stage in my life where I am at present, I don’t have work or friends or family commitments to stop me taking off whenever mood and finances allow. Bill Bryson is not me, however. He has a wife and for most of his books, a handful of kids, and you do begin to wonder exactly why he does choose to spend so much of his life as far away from them as possible...... This book is a log of his road trip through the “lost” bits of North America. Getting away from the east and west coasts, and leaving the large cities behind, he heads off into the unknown. He travels ...  Read the complete review

As far as I am aware, this 1989 title was the first Bryson travel book, and although I have put somewhere else on this site that I don't like to rank Bill Bryson books in terms of preference this probably is the one I enjoyed most. The Lost Continent was written when Bill had been based in Britain for 10 years. His father had passed away, and added together these things made him nostalgic for the places in which he had spent childhood vacations. As he reveals early on in the book, his family would drive from their Des Moines home and after driving for hours and hours, and getting lost, they would book into the cheapest ramshackle motel they could find. ...  Read the complete review

Before he became an established travel writer and the household name he is today, Bill Bryson returned to America to go on a journey of nearly 14,000 miles where he would visit many intriguing towns. His aim - to find the ideal community he was led to believe existed while growing up. But 'The Lost Continent' is more varied and interesting than just that. Bryson left his home town - Des Moines, Iowa - as soon as he was old enough to, but returns here as the starting point (twice) of the book. 'The Lost Continent' is split into two parts - 'East' and 'West'. This makes the book more interesting, and slightly easier to read on the ...  Read the complete review