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Average Customer Rating:

Not worth it

Customer Rating:

Despite having enjoyed several of Bryson's other books, I couldn't really get into this one which was about his travels in Europe, roughly following in his own footsteps from 20 years earlier. It was well-written and quite witty but it took me most of the book to realise why I didn't hugely enjoy it. I think I didn't enjoy the book because he didn't enjoy the trip. He spent a lot of time moaning and this affected the tone of the book. I just wished he'd either find something to enjoy, or just pack up and go home. He started off well, with a good amount of detail and good cheer and described the locations and people skillfully, but as it went on, you could feel him getting listless and this came through in his writing. I'd look up some of his other work (eg Notes from a Small Island) rather than this one.

Dated Maybe?

Customer Rating:

Needing to clear some space on my bookshelves I have decided to reacquaint myself with Bill Bryson's travel books before Bookcrossing them. This one was written in 1990, first published in 1992 and the edition on my bookshelf in 1998. I enjoyed reading this travelogue of his tour of some of the major cities of Europe, many of those mentioned which I have visited myself during the last forty years. Of those that I have not I think that Sofia in particular may well have changed beyond recognition, Eastern Europe having undergone the most changes in the last eighteen years. Whilst one might not always agree with Bryson's viewpoint it is none the less an amusing read, though one must also accept that in some aspects it can seem very dated. Certainly worth reading if you are at all interested in any of the places in Europe he writes about but remember it was written nearly twenty years ago now.

Quite a few clichés but entertaining

Customer Rating:

Neither Here Nor There is probably more for the novice than the experienced traveller, but it is entertaining and has a usefully broad scope. Bill Bryson, an American resident in London, takes his readers from the Arctic Circle to Istanbul in something like a couple of months, mixing in parts of Scandinavia, the Benelux, France, Germany and Italy among others before passing through the Balkans. Inevitably a lot is about finding hotels and places to eat, misplaced reservations and the pitfalls of communicating with strangers. This is travel writing, after all. And inevitably there tends to be quite a few clichés and national stereotyping. The commentary ranges from insightful (e.g. different perceptions of Amsterdam) to expected but fun (the police episode in Florence), to downright vulgar ("Quick restaurants - as in quick, pass the bucket!"). I found the first and last chapters, set in northern Norway, then Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, the most interesting. Bryson has more to say in out-of-the-way settings. And having travelled to the latter two at about the same time, I thought his observations both original and to the point. Nor does the book, written in the early 1990s, generally feel out-of-date. Bryson's style combines a wide descriptive vocabulary with a matter-of-fact, colloquial tone. It drips with irony and evinces plenty of sniggers. The same note is held too long, though, which may explain why one doesn't laugh as much as one would expect: the jokes and witticisms eventually lose an essential element of surprise. Perhaps not unusually for the genre, the book ends up saying as much about the observer as the observed. It provides a snapshot of how an educated and informed American views the European continent. That may be a reason for Europeans to want to read it.

Very Enjoyable ... Runs out of steam towards the end

Customer Rating:

This is the sort of book that makes you want to chuck in your job, pack a rucksack, cash in the savings and just go. The itinerary is extensive as are the anecdotes that accompany each trip or place. Its also very funny in parts. However I found that when Bill hit eastern Europe in the last few chapters he and the book ran out of steam. Having said that, at the time of the trip those places were pretty dire anyway.

Extremely funny

Customer Rating:

The first time Bill Bryson travelled around Europe was in 1972, when everyone on the flight from America was a hippy and his seatmate asked him if he had found Jesus ("Uh, no, it's a quarter", responds Bryson, retrieving a coin from the floor). The following year he returns in the company of his friend Katz - "the best thing that could be said for travelling abroad with Katz was that it spared the rest of America from having to spend the summer with him". Neither Here Nor There is mainly about an extensive journey through Europe twenty years later, from Hammerfest where he waits sixteen days to witness the Northern Lights, to Istanbul; where he decides it's time to return home after his wife informs him his chidren are addressing all grown men as daddy. There are also reminiscences back to the Katz journey, which are some of the funniest pages in the book. This is a real "traveller's book", with all the tedium, grotty hotel rooms, communication problems, unidentifiable food and frustrations. It is also brilliant at seeing the hilarious side of these - often using gross exaggeration and frequently very crude; but although dated there are very few books that have made me chortle so long and so loud.