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Notes from a Small Island Paperback – May 15, 2001

by Bill Bryson (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 8,796 ratings
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Featuring an all-new cover, New York Times bestseller Bill Bryson's irrevent and hilarious journey through the beloved island nation he called home for two decades. From Downing Street to Loch Ness, this is a delightful look at the United Kingdom.

Before New York Times bestselling author Bill Bryson wrote The Road to Little Dribbling, he took this delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating nation of Great Britain, which has produced zebra crossings, Shakespeare, Twiggie Winkie’s Farm, and places with names like Farleigh Wallop and Titsey.

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  1. Part of series
    Notes from a Small Island
  2. Print length
    324 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    William Morrow Paperbacks
  5. Publication date
    May 15, 2001
  6. Dimensions
    5.31 x 0.83 x 8 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0380727501
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0380727506
  9. See all details
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  1. And the British are so easy to please. It is the most extraordinary thing. They actually like their pleasures small.
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  2. The trick of successful walking, I always say, is knowing when to stop.
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  3. I sat there for some time, a young man with more on his mind than in it.
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Reacting to an itch common to Midwesterners since there's been a Midwest from which to escape, writer Bill Bryson moved from Iowa to Britain in 1973. Working for such places as Times of London, among others, he has lived quite happily there ever since. Now Bryson has decided his native country needs him--but first, he's going on a roundabout jaunt on the island he loves.

Britain fascinates Americans: it's familiar, yet alien; the same in some ways, yet so different. Bryson does an excellent job of showing his adopted home to a Yank audience, but you never get the feeling that Bryson is too much of an outsider to know the true nature of the country. Notes from a Small Island strikes a nice balance: the writing is American-silly with a British range of vocabulary. Bryson's marvelous ear is also in evidence: "... I noted the names of the little villages we passed through--Pinhead, West Stuttering, Bakelite, Ham Hocks, Sheepshanks ..." If you're an Anglophile, you'll devour Notes from a Small Island.

From the Back Cover

Before New York Times bestselling author Bill Bryson wrote The Road to Little Dribbling, he took this delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating nation of Great Britain, which has produced zebra crossings, Shakespeare, Twiggie Winkie’s Farm, and places with names like Farleigh Wallop and Titsey.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ William Morrow Paperbacks (May 15, 2001)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 324 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0380727501
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0380727506
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 0.83 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 8,796 ratings

About the author

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Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson

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Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. Settled in England for many years, he moved to America with his wife and four children for a few years ,but has since returned to live in the UK. His bestselling travel books include The Lost Continent, Notes From a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods and Down Under. His acclaimed work of popular science, A Short History of Nearly Everything, won the Aventis Prize and the Descartes Prize, and was the biggest selling non-fiction book of the decade in the UK.

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Top reviews from the United States

Dennis DeMattia
5.0 out of 5 stars Great author
Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2023
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I don't remember why I bought this book. But I loved it to the last page, and rolled on the floor most of the time. Subsequently, I have bought almost all of this author's prolific work. He can be a tiny bit vulgar, but where he is, it fits. This guy was born in the ole USA, and moved to the UK for 20 years, where he married and had a family. He was about to move back to the US, and decided to go see all the stuff he never had the time to do. (I grew up in San Francisco, never walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, because it would always be available when I had more time.) So, it is a bit of a travel book, a lot of humor, and a real page turner. He then wrote a book on what it was like to go back to the US after 20 years. Then later he picked up and moved Back to the UK, and wrote a book about that too.
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Richard C. Reynolds
4.0 out of 5 stars Amusing and Informative
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2016
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Bill Bryson takes a sentimental journey around Great Britain in the early 1990s and revisits many places he saw in 1973. Various towns, villages and major cities are on his itinerary throughout England, Wales and Scotland. He describes the people, their habits, manners and speech, and makes incisive and often humorous observations about the architecture of the major office and apartment buildings.
He discusses the London Underground Maps displayed on the walls of stations and how they portray only relative locations instead of actual distances. He gives an example of how someone can take an extensive journey through many different places and wind up in almost the same spot.
Bryson comments on the the English and how they queue up in patient and orderly ways for long lines at sporting events such as rugby or tennis at Wimbledon. He also visits Stonehenge and marvels at the efforts that must have been marshaled to gather some 600 citizens and drag a fifty-ton stone across eighteen miles of countryside. Once at the Waterloo station, he learns that his train has been delayed because of a fire at another station. He sees a man with a long red beard, waiting patiently for the tracks to be cleared. Bryson asks the gentleman if he’s been waiting long and the fellow answers, “I was clean shaven when I arrived here.”
Towards the end of the book, he reports an encounter with a young worker at a McDonald’s restaurant in Edinburgh. The fellow asks Bryson if he wants an apple turnover with his Egg McMuffin and our author gets all huffy about it, saying that if he wanted one he’d ask for it. Must have been out of sorts on that day.
If you’ve ever been to England or Scotland, it’s worth the price of this book to take an armchair visit once again and see it through the eyes of a talented traveler.
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Y. Gipson
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, as expected!
Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2023
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I was given the sequel, if you will, to this book first. Read it, LOVED it, and had to order this one too. Within the first 2 pages, I knew I'd love it also. I'm still reading it and enjoying it all! His writing style is so relatable, funny, and witty, while also being very informative for travel purposes. I wish I'd highlighted all through these books, but as a book lover, it's against my nature to intentionally 'damage' one, so I'll probably have to read them again, especially the newer one for travel purposes. If you love ol' Blighty, I don't see how you couldn't love this (these) books! It also arrived in good time and in the promised condition.
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Mark in Los Angeles
3.0 out of 5 stars A bleak litany of complaints sure to warm the heart of Anglophiles absolutely nowhere.
Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2016
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Once again dear reader, I have found myself lining the pockets of a man who time and time again seems to entertainingly tread water while unbeknownst to the us all, the real story can be found only a few feet below the surface.

I had already had a go at "A Walk In The Woods" some years ago, attracted by what seemed like a compelling start and Bryson's sardonic and clever humor. Eventually however, I abandoned it about 80% through when I realized it was becoming as arduous as the Appalachian trek itself.

But then this guy went and wrote a book on Australia which, having been a home of mine for a good many years, I was unable to resist. For a bit. This time, 70% through, I once again legged it. I found much of what he claimed to observe inauthentically recalled. Poetic license gone wild. Fine for the fiction section but that's not where that book was.

As you can no doubt already tell, I'm not that smart. So once again, having also spent 11 years in the UK, and with my UK-residing father frequently bellowing his affections for this author, I was, in a moment of defenselessness, pillaged by the most innocent of Amazon special offers in my inbox. Enthusiastically, with my prior Bryson experiences a distant or reflexively shelved memory, I dove hard into this book looking for wit, easy rolling prose and some expectation of quirk and depth.

Only to quickly hit the riverbed and put my back out.

I'll say this about the man. He's gifted with words. I have a penchant for English vernacular and a British sense of humor and Bryson does possess it in spades. All this despite his coming from a part of America in which the corn dog is a crowning cultural achievement. But you know Goebbels was pretty good with words too and I wasn't a fan. I know what you're thinking. The comparison is not fair. (If you're in doubt, I do mean to Bryson, not Goebbels).

Our friend Bill spends a great deal of potentially illuminating energy huffing and puffing rather than shedding light. Instead of taking us on a journey, he instead garage us along, serving up a detailed account of the ways in which he is peeved. He is content to relay his unlimited supply of utter annoyance, cynicism and unkind thoughts. With great abandon and joy he hurls harpoons at most of what he observes; from the food, to the culture, to a small familial pod of grim, hefty British hotel guests whom he witnesses encircling and devouring a disproportionately large number of desserts. Now look. I've been served potato salad with Shepherd's pie and chips whilst in England. I know things get get a bit starchy from time to time. And granted, not everyone in the UK is Kate Moss. I'm not even sure Kate Moss is Kate Moss, but I felt his ramblings on the unattractiveness of some of those that crossed his path to be somewhat rich coming from a man with a fine face for the printed word.

Nonetheless, I was determined - if only to please my gentle natured father - to finish one of Bryson's books for the first time. You know, like I did with almost every other book I ever bought that wasn't by Mr. Bryson. In the true spirit of a book about Great Britain, I elected to keep calm and carry...well you know what I mean, for heaven's sake.

In the end, this book offers a reasonable number of witty but all too often disparaging and smug comments that offer little to middling insight into the whys and hows of British character. Little in the way of quirky country flat cap wearing herdsmen. Nothing about the folk who deliver the mail in 364 days of rain a year. Little of the milk man who can tell you that thanks to the odd lonely housewife on his route, delivering milk on a feeble and emasculating flatbedded electric milk float can be a more manly pursuit than one might ever imagine.

No, alas not. Mostly just menus, place names and bus schedules. Mostly a litany of complaints, each more mopy than the last about how dreaded the trains, the hotels and (obviously) the weather is. Peppered, of course, with the odd agreeable meal and castle runs. Travelogues are of limited appeal when they comprise largely of the main protagonist trying his best to get the hell away from wherever he is as soon as possible. (Karl Pilkington gets a pass though.) I must say, it's the first time I've ever wondered, in the middle of a book, "If Milton Keynes is really THAT bad then why not just KILL YOURSELF?"

In the end of course, after farting, drinking, elbowing the china cabinets, and occasionally declaring a desire to punch the lights out of Britain, Bryson tries to smooth it all over by wrapping up his journal in a patronizing drenching of platitudes about British character; standard fare: their wry, splendid humor, their indefatigable spirit, and the marvel of the green, rolling views from their hilltops. He effuses the gift of living there for decades. He speaks of how he will miss it. He laments, pondering on how he will surely return. But deep down, this last minute effort to redeem the tone of the book sounds a little hollow. A bit like watching a politician speak at the podium with the wife he just cheated on watching stoically at his side, as he speaks of love of family, while trying to apologetically extricate himself from an adultery scandal.

In the end, this book, though admittedly appealing to my darker side, seems to be mostly a long description outlining which buses and trains Bryson caught, how inconvenient their schedules were, who annoyed him immensely, and how damn cold and soaking wet he was for a good deal of the time while said annoyance was in progress.

Perhaps his familiarity with Britain was his undoing. Perhaps he forgot, after a few decades away from conservative talk radio, all you can eat buffets, and weight loss miracle belt informercials that so much of what he was looking at, was really quite a marvel in the way so much of Europe clearly and obviously is. Sure, it gets complicated. Sure, it has its shortcomings. Sure, pretty much all the shower water pressure absolutely sucks. But then, after cursing while toweling off, you get to walk out the door and see a cathedral that is 800 years old. Or eat black pudding. Or drink your pint on the street outside the pub. In the drizzle. It's a place full of bloody wonders.

That all said, I recall now he did in fact have a good many things to say about the bookshops. No doubt, it was encouraging to know there was something worth reading out there.

Three stars!
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Top reviews from other countries

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Adele C
5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it
Reviewed in Canada on June 18, 2021
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Loved it
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C.J. van Leeuwen
5.0 out of 5 stars outdated but amusing
Reviewed in France on December 7, 2023
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The humour, the sly digs, the perceptive comments.
A genuine love of Britain which shines through any mildly derogatory sentence.
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Shane White
5.0 out of 5 stars heartwarming travelogue about mid-1990s U.K.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 4, 2021
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I’ve been meaning to read this book for at least ten years and I finally got round to it recently. I’m pleased to say that it was worth the wait and that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Bill Bryson tells anecdotes from his arrival in the UK in 1973 and from his time working in journalism during the 1980s. Then, in the mid-1990s, he goes on a journey around the UK, along the way considering the things that make this country unique.

It’s an interesting look back at life over a quarter of a century ago, especially in terms of prices: in 1994, admission to Stonehenge was £2.80; in 2021, a concessions non-donation ticket is £17.60!

The book contains many humorous anecdotes as well as some anecdotes about a few furious rants at strangers, which are entertaining to read and I love how honest he is at including these often unwarranted attacks on strangers!

He writes very well and has some interesting observations about the British. His criticisms are few but fair and his praise is frequent and his love for the country shines through.

The book flows very well and I always want to read on, which isn’t always the case with a lot of authors. This book is a joy to read.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in India on January 15, 2018
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A very enjoyable book
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M. M. Buiter-luijke Roskott
5.0 out of 5 stars Bill bryson. Altijd heerlijk lezen
Reviewed in the Netherlands on March 29, 2017
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Zoals alle boeken van bill bryson, prachtig boek. Heerlijke beschrijvingen. Vaak tijdens het lezen in lachen uit gebarsten. Wat schijft die man bijzonder
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