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I'm a Stranger Here Myself
by Bill Bryson
A book about returning to America after living in England.
After spending 20 years abroad living in England, Bill Bryson chronicles his return to America in I’m a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away. In a series of columns initially written for a newspaper, Bryson describes his readjustment to a country that has changed greatly in his absence.
After rounding up his wife and children and leaving behind their lives in rural England, Bryson, for no reason he can really recall, decides to move back to the United States. What he finds upon his return varies greatly from the America that he left many years earlier. Diners and locally owned bookstores are gradually being phased out by larger chains and cars have replaced walking as the most efficient means of transportation—even when going just a few feet. Yet what remains for Bryson, is his love of American tradition—one thing that has not changed. He still finds excitement in baseball games (which he feels were never appreciated in England), and discovers pleasure in the importance of family holidays like Thanksgiving. Despite his observations about how different America has become, Bryson’s book highlights that the personality of its people remains constant.
From his shock about the overwhelming choices offered in American supermarkets, where 25 kinds of frozen pizza seem like the norm, to his sadness over the loss of the small-town America that he knew as a child, Bryson’s book serves as an exploration into what the United States once was and is becoming. Though the series of newspaper clippings lack a definite plot and drag somewhat in the middle, Bryson’s sarcasm and humor propel readers forward in the book as they continue with him on his journey to reacquaint himself with his homeland.
Title: I'm a Stranger Here Myself
Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Broadway Books
ISBN: 076790382X
Review written by: Meghan Moynihan
Reviewer's Rating:9
Reader's Rating: 10.00
Reader's Votes: 1
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