The Lost Continent

The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America - Bill Bryson

I love Bill Bryson's travel memoirs, and I consider A Walk in the Woods to be one of the best books I have ever read. However, I have to admit...I found A Lost Continent to be slightly disappointing. 

 

I think that the problem was three fold. The first problem was that this book is dated. It was published sometime in the 80's I believe, and it definitely feels that way, Its not dated to the point of being unreadable and as it's not exactly a reference book...so no problem there but it does effect the enjoyment if only to make you depressed just how much prices have gone up.

 

The other things that I found disappointing was Bryson's sense of humor. Usually, that it the thing that attracts me to his books. They are typically very informative but also extremely funny and entertaining so you generally forget that hey, this guy is really smart and he's trying to make me really smart as well! With this particular title, I felt that Bryson was trying to be all funny, but not very informative. I didn't feel as though I gleamed much knowledge from this book and a lot of the humor seemed almost mean spirited.

 

I gave this book a four star rating, though I'm not sure why. I'm going to change it to a three star rating as I just don't feel as though it deserves four stars.