The Lost Continent & Neither Here Nor There

by Bill Bryson

Here in one volume are two comic masterpieces by Bill Bryson ; - The Lost Continent is the story of Bryson's return to the land of his youth; - Neither Here nor There Bryson is in Europe, travelling the breadth of the continent.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Humor, Memoir, Audiobook, Comedy, American

498 pages, Hardcover

First published November 9, 1992

About the author

Bill Bryson is a bestselling American-British author known for his witty and accessible nonfiction books spanning travel, science, and language. He rose to prominence with Notes from a Small Island (1995), an affectionate portrait of Britain, and solidified his global reputation with A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003), a popular science book that won the Aventis and Descartes Prizes. Raised in Iowa, Bryson lived most of his adult life in the UK, working as a journalist before turning to writing full-time. His other notable works include A Walk in the Woods, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, and The Mother Tongue. Bryson served as Chancellor of Durham University (2005–2011) and received numerous honorary degrees and awards, including an honorary OBE and election as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society. Though he announced his retirement from writing in 2020, he remains one of the most beloved voices in contemporary nonfiction, with over 16 million books sold worldwide.

Reviews

[Aoi · Rating 1 out of 5]

RAGE-QUIT !! @ 20%

The author is a British national, out on a trip across Europe - and yet, cannot stop with the cliche- ridden generalizations, casual racism and grossly unfunny jokes.

I shudder to think what would have happened on a trip across Asia or Africa.

[Chris Steeden · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Lost Continent

1988 and Bill Bryson drives 13978 miles and takes in 38 of the US states. He starts off from his birthplace in Des Moines, Iowa and is sort of following some of the family vacations from his childhood days. Does the perfect town exist in the US?

Part One is The East where he drives from Iowa to Illinois then onto Missouri. Visits Hannibal and Mark Twain's boyhood home. Back into Illinois and then New Salem. There is a restored village where Abraham Lincoln lived as a young man from 1831 to 1837. Then into Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. Goes to Elvis Presley's hometown of Tupelo then onto Colombus the hometown of Tennessee Williams. Alabama and Selma where in the 1960's this is where the civil rights marches took place with Martin Luther King. Goes to see the 'Little White House' in Warm Springs, Georgia where Franklin Roosevelt died. South Carolina and Charleston. From the promenade overlooking the harbour he can see Fort Sumter where the Civil war began. Into North Carolina and the Blue Ridge mountains which is part of the Appalachian chain. the Appalachians stretch for 2100 miles from Alabama to Canada. Onot Baltimore and the estate built by George Vanderbilt in 1895. It was one of the biggest houses constructed in America. Visits the Great Smoky mountains which is actually the most popular national park in America. Off North Carolina is Roanoke Island where in 1587 a group of 115 English settlers from Plymouth set-up a colony in the New World. They disappeared and no-one knows where. Did they become a group of people called 'Melungeon'? Onto Mount Vernon which was George Washington's home for most of his life, then Washington, Maryland, Philadelphia and Gettysburg where the decisive battle of the Civil War was fought over 3 days in July 1863. New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Provincetown where the pilgrim fathers first touched American soil in 1620. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Great Lakes, Wisconsin and back to Iowa.

Part 2, The west and Bryson heads into Nebraska and gets to the geographical center of the US. In Kansas he goes to a town called Holcomb which was made famous when a family were murdered in 1959 and Truman Capote wrote 'In Cold Blood'. Then onto Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Grand Canyon, Utah, Nevada, California, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and Minnesota.

There are many many laugh out loud moments in this book even though Bryson is a bit grumpy and lonely. I really enjoyed re-reading this as it had been many years since first reading.

Neither Here Nor There

Bryson's travels round Europe. He wants to see the Northern lights so takes a bus from Oslo to Hammerfest. This is 1000 miles north of the Shetlands. He winters back in England and then starts in Paris, then Brussels. Travels to the village of Durbuy in Belgium where the Battle of the Bulge took place. Into Germany where he visits Aachen and Cologne then onto Amsterdam in Holland then back into Germany and Hamburg in the north of the country where he then into Denmark and Copenhagen.

Travels to Sweden where he visits Gothenberg (second-largest city in Sweden) and Stockholm. Hen then hankers for some warmth and flies to Rome and then the Vatican and by contrast to Naples briefly and then Sorento (coastal town south of Naples) and Capri (little island and sounds lovely), back through Naples and then Florence, Milan and Lake Como.

Switzerland, tiny Liechtenstein, Austria and then Sofia in Bulgaria (where the shops are bare) and finally to Istanbul in Turkey where Europe becomes Asia.

Conclusion
I loved both of these books. I did have more laugh out loud moments on The Lost Continent but Bryson certainly has some great stories in Neither Here Nor There. Great reading.

[Vijay Chengappa · Rating 3 out of 5]

By the high standards for humor set by Bryson, this one is a letdown!

[Lauren · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had to hang it up at the end of chapter four. After Bryson makes the same generalizations about every town he passes through, he dubs Carbondale, Illinois as “the most boring town in America.” There are a lot of adjectives for Carbondale (wild, bizarre, eccentric, etc), and regardless of the demographic describing it, boring is never among them. Had Bryson taken an ounce of energy to actually explore Carbondale - like, say, turn off of the highway on which he drove back and forth - he would immediately discover the theaters and bowling alleys he claimed didn’t exist there were actually mere blocks from the shitty Pizza Hut he chose to eat at. And had he spoken to a single local he likely would have wound up enjoying one of the local college town pizza joints that thrived in the late 80s (unless he was trying to paint America as filled with shittowns and purposefully sought out the pizza huts?)
The fact that this author drove around America and, at least by state number 3, had put minimal effort into experiencing it, made it easy for me to put this book down for good only 50 pages in.

[V.K. Dadhich · Rating 2 out of 5]

What made me read the book - it was on 80% off, so i bought it

What I liked about the book - ahem, i liked the font alignment. Because, let's face it, reading the two-in-one book felt like he was forced to go on travel and document his experiences. At least, he was generous with Europe. But he was spewing venom on USA, and all with little basis.

Who will I recommend the book to - someone who likes to see a parent scolding one child and praising the other child when they both did the same misdeed

What did the book teach me - it taught me to buy my books with more discretion

#OBAAT One Book At A Time

[Vanessa Alonso]

Ok... I have to say that this book has liked and disliked to me. The first part of the book, the author is like "everything is awful" "everybody is fat and ugly" with a tone in which the author is like that everything he sees disgutes him. So it´s difficult to read.
Nevertheless, the second part based on his travel on the West in the States is very interisting and i read it faster than the firt one of the East. The descriptions are vivid and interesting. Is a good travel novel.

[Cynthia Feenstra · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF..after halfway through this short book that was recommended to me as a "funny travel memoir" I just had to close the book.
It's not funny--it's vulgar. And I'm not talking about a few curse words here and there.
I'm talking full on vulgarity. I need to shower just to get the filth off my body! Yuck!

[Ian Higgs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining as always and just what you want before settling down to sleep. Not because the style is boring but because it is gentle and calming reading.

[Christabel Britto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect for a light read, vicarious travel and a ton of laughs!

[David Sherwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10
If you have read Bill Bryson before, then you'll certainly know what to expect. Irreverent, funny, and a travel book like you've never read. Recommended.,..

[Jeannette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great author. Fun view on traveling through Europe. He says things that are unexpected , brilliant, relatable & hilarious

[Janet Bird · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good grief, as if I haven't got enough books hither and thither, I've two copies of some of them! Must offload them to the free bookshop then. Share and share alike. Reading again soon...

[Tara Blais Davison · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5

[Pvw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes you can get lucky. A new thing in Belgium (probably in other countries as well, but I can't say) is the GIFT BOX. The idea is that people of a city neighbourhood put all the discarded stuuf they don't need anymore into a public box, where everybody is allowed to take from the things they can use. The system works, but it can also turn into a junk collection. Especially for books, it isn't even worth checking them out because they are hopelessly outdated, wet or torn and missing pages. But last month, looking into the box anyway because I stood there waiting for someone, I came across this Bill Bryson book in mint condition!

I had alread read part two (Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe), so I just went for "The Lost Continent". After his father's death, Bryson does a road trip through all the places that his father used to take the family to on holidays. As an Iowan emigrated to Britain, he looks at the places with both the miscomprehension of a European and the recognition of one returning to his roots.

The descriptions of the places are often hilarious, albeit tending towards the negative. But that is okay, and it sure is a lot of fun. The road trip gives the non-American reader a diffent perspective of the United States. It is not always the beautiful nature of the national parks and the urban swing of the big cities. In fact, most of the US is incredibly flat and unpopulated. Bryson states that you could stand on a stone anywhere in Iowa and see an area the size of Belgium around you, with nothing but wheat fields and the occasional farm, which all look the same. Something else I remembered from the book: in the entire state of Nevada, there are only 40 cities. In Britain, roughly the same area, there are 20,000.

Eventhough this book portrays the US states as boring places filled with retarded backwaters, it is highly enjoyable to read and would make a great preparation before making an actual roadtrip across the USA yourself.

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love most of what Bill Bryson writes but sometimes ... I didn't read this combo pack of two short books, I read The Lost Continent, and I couldn't finish it. Parts of it are so funny that I laughed out loud (very loud). But mostly it's kind of an angry forced march across America, as Bryson deals with his unpleasant memories of similar cross-country treks with his family, his father at the wheel. He hates 75 percent of the towns and places he visits; often he's so vicious and insulting that you have to hope he's kidding. I got about two thirds of the way through this book and started finding myself skimming it. So .., I gave it up.

[Finbarr · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've rarely been as disappointed in a book as I was with this. Full of quasi-racist slurs, sweeping generalisations and unfunny, overwritten jokes, it's a world away from the Bryson books of recent years. Published in 1990, before the era of affordable world travel and pre-internet connectivity, the book is of its time and has aged horribly. Bryson constantly plumps for the obvious - wheeling out the Dad's Army-era stereotypes for peoples around Europe, going for a cheap gag, and often failing. Perhaps its only merit is as an artifact of a time at which Britain's continental neighbours seemed alien and Europe itself a million miles away.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of a cheat really, only read “The Lost Continent”. This was the second time, I have been trying to mug up on American geography realising that I’m pretty ignorant.

This didn’t really help. You do get an idea about the size and emptiness of America and its consumerism, but it’s only a skim over the surface, presumably because of A metrics side and only 260 pages. I really enjoyed his “Notes from a Small Island” and to a lesser extent “Little Dribbling”, but in these I could share the observations and jokes. I’ve not been to America.

[Christie · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is not one book by Bill Bryson I have read that I have no absolutely loved. His humor hits perfectly hit every time. I lived in England when I read Notes from a Small Island and then went on to read this one and then compulsively read the rest of his books. He is brilliant. His humor is jovial, astute and just spot on. I could read him all day long.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

A friend gave me copy of the Lost Continent years ago... it was by some bloke called Bryson... he told me it was hillarious.

Foolishly it took me a further 2 years before I picked it up and read it. Why did I wait so long... I can't get enough of it/him now. A stunningly funny writer.

[Dani · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my second Bill Bryson book, I read "Walk in the Woods" which I think I liked a little better. His tale about convincing his father to take a detour to the caverns was priceless. It brought back so many memories of my own childhood vacations.

[Gábor · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to receive succinct description about the Eastern states of the USA (and not get easily offended by sometimes off beat satire), this book is for you. No wonder the author chose to disguise names of most cities visited ...

[Beverley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bill Bryson is very funny, and I enjoyed my trip with him, although I was disappointed that instead of seeing the California and Oregon coasts. he choose the San Juaquin Valley and Nevada!!! Of course, one always loves ones home the most. It was a very intertaining and bitingly insightful book.

[Alexander]

A sarcastic outlook on the US as the author drives around the country. Some historic facts are provided as the background for sarcastic comments.

[Darren Phasey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. Bill bryson is one funny guy. He'd be great as a travelling companion on an around the world trip.

[CJ Mason The Fallen Librarian Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laugh out loud brilliance, my dad & ended up reading these to each other and laughing until we cried, BB is a genius

[Andrew Corrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bryson travelling around the USA and Europe. Laughed out loud.