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The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America | 
 enlarge | Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $0.89
You Save: $14.06 (94%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  279 reviews
Sales Rank: 5300
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0060920084
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.30492
EAN: 9780060920081
ASIN: 0060920084
Publication Date: September 12, 1990
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
A travelogue by Bill Bryson is as close to a sure thing as funny books get. The Lost Continent is no exception. Following an urge to rediscover his youth (he should know better), the author leaves his native Des Moines, Iowa, in a journey that takes him across 38 states. Lucky for us, he brought a notebook. With a razor wit and a kind heart, Bryson serves up a colorful tale of boredom, kitsch, and beauty when you least expect it. Gentler elements aside, The Lost Continent is an amusing book. Here's Bryson on the women of his native state: "I will say this, however--and it's a strange, strange thing--the teenaged daughters of these fat women are always utterly delectable ... I don't know what it is that happens to them, but it must be awful to marry one of those nubile cuties knowing that there is a time bomb ticking away in her that will at some unknown date make her bloat out into something huge and grotesque, presumably all of a sudden and without much notice, like a self-inflating raft from which the pin has been yanked." Yes, Bill, but be honest: what do you really think?
Product Description
An unsparing and hilarious account of one man's rediscovery of America and his search for the perfect small town.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 274 more reviews...
 The Lost Bryson June 23, 2008
Actually, 3.4 stars. I am always up for a good American road trip book and I have very much enjoyed Bill Bryson's other books. What I got was early Bryson before he found his heart and an America that was beginning to go to seed on its own indifferent overindulgences. If you have not read anything else by Bill Bryson, do not start with this. He got much better in a hurry and wrote some unmissable books, which you might not be inspired to go for if all you've read is this and ended up with a mild case of indigestion. And that would be a shame.
Anyway, in the late 1980's, Iowa native Bryson, who had spent his adult life to date living in England, returned stateside after his dad's death to rediscover America in much the same way his childhood vacations always went--a ramble by car through the heartland. He envisioned stopping in those small town motels with neon signs that had pots of flowers outside and a nice courtyard pool. He envisioned dining on decent local cuisine in a corner restaurant and later shambling about town on foot, discovering its pleasantries. He headed southeast from Des Moines on the first half of a figure eight shaped path that would hit 38 of the 48 contiguous states before he was done, in his mother's old Chevette. After a promising start in Pella, Iowa, things mostly don't go perfectly. He is often bored, the food and food service often not good, and he finds Americans mostly fat and leading unexamined lives while their heritage slips through their fingers.
Bryson makes a lot of bratty jokes and it is obvious he is writing more for his audience in England than here (when he describes the size of a place, for instance, he compares it to Shropshire). He reminds me of people who say they are licensed to tell Polish jokes because they are of Polish descent. That said, the reason I did not demote this more stars is that he was not wrong and not overly cruel about our unexamined lives circa 1987-88. Looking at his picture in time, America was an accident ready to happen. Now obesity is an epidemic, as is the wanton development and lack of municipal planning that has emptied our small towns and ringed our national parks and historic sites. It seemed to him then that we had lost an incredible amount of our cultural heritage already but for those of us who had progressively absorbed it daily without really paying attention, it is really hitting home now.
 Read Another Bryson Book... June 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Bill Bryson drives aimlessly around America by himself and complains. Not his best work. Anyone who tucks into chicken fried steak every night doesn't get to critique restaurants. If he bothered to study about any culture other than Anglo-American, he might enjoy some of the areas he traveled through. He manages to use racial terms I honestly have not heard in three decades.
 funny whining May 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As has been pointed out by everyone else,
Mr. Bryson whines and complains through the
whole book. BUT, it still has a lot of laugh
out loud moments, getting me strange looks from
everyone several places where I happened to be reading it.
Bryson writes great books - even though they make me crazy! May 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I honestly cannot put Bryson's books down. They are good reads - I've just ordered three additional Bryson books and can't wait to recieve them.
This being said - I need to re-read this book and keep a running total of just how many places he starts to go to and doesn't - because of a steep entrance fee, because of traffic, because of a plethora of reasons. I'm guessing the tally on the 'intended to' side might be greater than the tally on the 'actually experienced, as a bona fide ticket holder / road traffic warrior'. Yes, I understand what he's trying to say about Americans being easily parted with their money. However, the 'lesson' becomes annoying, and comes off as an excuse he uses to just not see many important sites first-hand.
Also, try to develop a tough skin before reading this book if you are a resident of the South - or any small town anywhere in the country that could with any stretch of the imagination be considered 'backward'. My conclusion of Bryson's absolute distain for certain places, primarally but not limited to the South, is that it is so much easier to pull comedy out of the negative than the positive. Also, people are, by nature, inclined to notice the bad before the good. Bryson, especially but not limited to this earlier work, goes with the easier cliche slam against whole peoples.
Don't get me started in his bizarre anti-elderly people stance. He goes on rants about Americans not recognizing national treasures. He's referring to architecture and landscape for the most part. And shows complete distain to the elderly. It reflects either a genuine over-zealous dislike, or an attempt at humor gone too far and repeated much too often.
All being said, I'm still gonna read his work. It's entertaining!
Entertaining but leaves a sour taste April 7, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Having been to many of the places Bryson visited in this book, I find myself wondering how he could possibly have had such an apparently unpleasant time. Bryson's wit in this volume is not just biting, it's acidic, even heartless. This book will make you chuckle, but even most of the laughs leave a bad taste in the mouth. I have greatly enjoyed three other Bryson books, but I can't really recommend this one.
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