#16 Thunderbolt Kid

Bill Bryson was the Thunderbolt Kid, not a real comic book character, but it does show to some extent the influence of comic books on the boys of his generation, or in Iowa, or in fact just him. Even then, I think this book is much less about Bryson than it is about the culture in which he was immersed: 50s middle America. It's a lot like the Shakespeare book in that way.

I enjoyed it because even though I'm much younger than he is, I grew up in a semi-rural area that grew much more suburban and "American mall" as I aged. So even though we started out having McDonald's, you still had to get your shoes from one of two stores in the nearby small city, and they knew us when we went in for new school shoes because they had fitted my grandmother and mother before us. Or knowing when Kessler Farm really was a farm and not a municipal soccer field before it became a K-Mart.

Still, we can't get too nostalgic about the old days. I shudder to think of the choices or lack thereof women had in semirural New Hampshire in the 50s, 60s, and even 70s. I'm not sure Bryson is as critical as he could be, either. But being critical isn't that funny, is it? (Of course, his mom worked.)

1. The Palace Under the Alps (1985)
2. The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America (1989)
3. The Mother Tongue (1990)
4. Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe (1991)
5. Made in America (1994)
6. Notes from a Small Island (1995)
7. A Walk in the Woods (1998)
8. I’m a Stranger Here Myself (1998)
9. In a Sunburned Country (2000)
10. Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words (2002)
11. Bill Bryson’s African Diary (2002)
12. A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003)
13. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir (2006)
14. Shakerspeare (Eminent Lives) (2007)

#16 Bryson in Africa

I'm behind here. I finished Bill Bryson's African Diary a week ago. It's a very short book--64 pages. At the invitation of CARE, Bryson visits some of their African project. All proceeds from the book go to the organization, and here I am taking it out of the library. It is not quite as laugh-a-minute as some of his other books, but how can we expect it to be so? There is a very funny bit on flying in bush planes. (I'm with him there--but I was in the first world making that flight.)

There's a photo in the book that confirms the need for an organization that the dude and I thought up: bringing soccer balls to poor kids the world over. Probably, there is already an organization doing this; maybe we should just give them money.

I've started both Palace Under the Alps and Neither Here nor There and they make for good companion reading since the former is a guidebook to interesting little-known and less-visited sites in Europe and the latter is his European travel journal. (Yes, I read guidebooks cover to cover, and I'll even read them if they are 25 years out of date.)

#16 Bryson

This book came out after I created this list, but my library had it so I figured wtf, let's just read it. Right up front Bryson tells you we hardly know anything about Shakespeare. So, you figure, how'd he manage to write 200+ pages? It's a cutural study of the period, and a good one. It's in his usual snappy style, but if you've ever read an academic book about the period, you can skip this one. If you haven't, this is a good one!

Reading

I have read a couple of mysteries, and I think I've said this before: I don't know if I should count them toward my quota of fiction. They are fiction, but it takes me so much less time and brainpower to read mysteries than to read more highbrow stuff. I read Deadhead, a Dalziel and Pascoe mystery by Reginald Hill and Mrs. Malory and Death in Practice by Hazel Holt. I am also reading Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake; I'll probably finish that tonight, unless I decide to work on some crafts. Maybe I should make some sort of random qualification about what counts toward the fiction list, like the book has to be recommended in Book Lust. I hereby amend the list.

I also finished Mother Tongue from the Bryson list. It's very similar to Made in America, except there's more information on British English and English-around-the-world. It was okay. I have started looking for the other books, and even though I've checked several university libraries, I can't find Palace Under the Alps. I'm not buying it for $60 off amazon.

Well, there are some disorganized thoughts for you. The kitchen floor will be ready Monday. Big excitement!

#16 Read the Bill Bryson oeuvre

I had never heard of Bill Bryson when the dude's bro sent him two books for Christmas in the mid-to-late-90s: Made in America and Notes from a Small Island. One evening, during my second year-long bout of hives, after the books had rested comfortably on our shelves for a few years, I climbed into the tub with the linguistic history, which had been conveniently located near the study door. I was enraptured. I read it quickly--as you can because, while interesting, the substance is fairly easy--and then picked up Small Island. Like me, Bryson is an American married to a Brit. Like me he finds the country at once familiar and completely incomprehensible. Unlike me, he actually dares to live there. (Oddly enough, he's ended up in the dude's hometown of Durham.)

When I had time, I continued to read Bryson's work, laughing hysterically at his attempt to negotiate the Appalachain Trail (which I used to want to walk when I was a kid) and admiring the haphazard nature of scientific discovery in the part of A Short History I managed to read; apparently it wasn't short enough. But then I stopped reading. Reading on my commute makes me nauseous.

This is the background to putting reading Bryson's work to my list of things to do. And since I went to the library last week and picked up I'm a Stranger Here Myself, Lost Continent, and In a Sunburned Country, I have been reading them.

I really enjoyed Sunburned Country, but first I had to have a crisis of confidence while reading Lost Continent, which I finished on Tuesday, but haven't had time to write about. I took lots of notes, scrupulously, and I will write those up eventually. But I loved Sunburned Country not because I thought it told me all I need it know about Australia, but because it told me anything at all about Australia. The dude and I were trying to think of things we knew about Australia and what we came up with was this: Greg Norman, Crocodile Dundee, and the Crocodile Hunter--the last two made a living selling Australia to Americans, so we're not prepared to go by them. Oh, and Evonne Goolagong. And Bryson's central thesis that we know nothing about Australia is true. We're very bad for neglecting it.

I liked the section about stromatolites best. It reminded me of a trip I had taken to Death Valley and the fascination with which we watched Cyprinodon salinus salinus, Death Valley Pupfish, a fish whose survival is incredibly unlikely. I recognized Bryson's attempt to explain to the American tourist what was so fascinating about stromatolites, as I have often had these conversations with my family. Recently, I was telling Sissy and my cousin about our planned trip to Montana, where we will see unusual things in nature, and was met with much the same response.

Because I haven't written a sublist in a while, here's one--the books in Bryson's oeuvre with the ones I have read marked:

1. The Palace Under the Alps (1985)
2. The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America (1989)
3. The Mother Tongue (1990)
4. Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe (1991)
5. Made in America (1994)
6. Notes from a Small Island (1995)
7. A Walk in the Woods (1998)
8. I’m a Stranger Here Myself (1998)
9. In a Sunburned Country (2000)
10. Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words (2002)
11. Bill Bryson’s African Diary (2002)
12. A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003)
13. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir (2006)

#2 Get a Library Card

Today was such a lovely day. If I could walk, I would have insisted on going on a hike. Instead, we went for a drive, and while we were out, we went looking for the library. And found it. We got our library cards and took out some books. In fact, I'm two pages from completing my first book, Bill Bryson's I'm a Stranger Here Myself. I've been laughing like a deranged idiot. There was one article that nearly provoked an asthma attack; as I neared the end of the book, I tried to find that earlier article and couldn't. I couldn't even remember what it was about. So I guess the joys of the book are fleeting. But there's nothing like getting a good laugh every now and then. I have The Lost Continent and In A Sunburned Country, so I look forward to more Albuterol highs in the coming days.