The Lost Continent: Travels In Small Town America

A travelogue by Bill Bryson is as close to a sure thing as funny books get. The Lost Continent is no exception. Following an urge to rediscover his youth (he should know better), the author leaves his native Des Moines, Iowa, in a journey that takes him across 38 states. Lucky for us, he brought a notebook.

With a razor wit and a kind heart, Bryson serves up a colourful tale of boredom, kitsch, and beauty when you least expect it. Gentler elements aside, The Lost Continent is an amusing book. Here's Bryson on the women of his native state: "I will say this, however–and it's a strange, strange thing–the teenaged daughters of these fat women are always utterly delectable … I don't know what it is that happens to them, but it must be awful to marry one of those nubile cuties knowing that there is a time bomb ticking away in her that will at some unknown date make her bloat out into something huge and grotesque, presumably all of a sudden and without much notice, like a self- inflating raft from which the pin has been yanked."

Yes, Bill, but be honest: what do you really think?

Book Description
Bill Bryson's very first travel book, a sidesplittingly funny road trip around America.

Product Description
This volume contains humorous accounts of two journeys, one taken across America, the other a trek across Europe. "The Lost Continent" is an account of one man's rediscovery of America and his search for the perfect small town. Instead he finds a continent that is doubly lost: lost to itself because it is blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; and lost to him because he has become a foreigner in his own country. In "Neither Here Nor There", the author journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the European continent, to Istanbul. In doing so he retraces his steps as a student 20 years before, visiting countries including Norway, France and Italy.