I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away

This book has a charming premise. Bryson is an American writer who lived in Britain for over twenty years, marrying an Englishwoman and raising two children. He moved back to the States with his family, where he wrote a series of essays about America for a British audience.

Bryson is a keen and witty observer of life. How many of us could write an entire essay prompted by the existence of a 24-hour help line on a dental floss dispenser? The essays are uniformly amusing, sometimes side-splitting.

Thought not as consistently funny as Dave Barry, Bryson goes further by adding a healthy dose of thoughtfulness to it all. Throughout the book he ponders what it means to be American, comparing and contrasting it with what it means to British. Every so often the question of Canadianness pops in as well. As countries divided by a common language, they provide a nice playground for Bryson, and he has a good time with them.

Laugh-out-loud hilarious. Bryson's observations about American society and its absurdities rings so true and the author is the perfect vehicle for showcasing these stories. He is just so lovable in his books. His absentmindedness and his sharp wit both serve him extremely well. While poking fun at others, he also pokes fun at himself. His work is just priceless.

In this book, Bill Bryson presents a compilation of weekly columns he had published upon his return from England to the States, after being away for 20 years. And boy did he had a cultural shock! He presents in a VERY funny way the things that we take for granted every day and, one by one, dissects the very elements that make up the American way of life in an insightful way.

The book is assembled in a chapter fashion with a certain structure that connects them whenever applicable. The chapters are short and self-contained enough to turn the book into an endless feed of amazing 5-minute fun reads before bedtime or while you are sitting in a waiting room.

Bill Bryson has to be one of the 'most readable' authors for folk who prefer a good chuckle. My wife is not so happy and moans about my giggling keeping her awake.
Keep up the good work Bill

this book is a collection of articles B.B. plublished in a british newspaper.
Most are amazingly funny - in the laugh-out-loud kind of way, and very few are slightly boring (but as they are all just a few pages long you can go through them realy fast or just skip them). I would definitely recommend this book.