Exploring Europe's Uncharted Paths: A Journey Through the Old World

Anne: Genau wir bescheieben, klar und deutlich

Germany on Dec 28, 2023

George V Loughery: Bill Bryson has a comfortably acerbic wit. Like Rabbit Angstrom in John Updike's series he returns to places he has been before. In this case he retraces many of his youthful footprints in Europe.

Canada on Nov 30, 2023

M'Hutti: good book, light reading, not always as funny to me as described

United States on Nov 11, 2023

Tom G.: Interesting to read one person’s experience trekking through Europe. Not my favorite Bryson book.

United States on Nov 03, 2023

Britpilot: I’ve always wondered what life would be like visiting Europe as a whole (from England) and, apart from the usual holiday destinations - Spain, Italy and France - I have had no desire to go elsewhere but didn’t know why. I was born a few years before Bill and would have been a co-wanderer had I had the inclination and, reading this book now, 30 years after Bill’s adventure, I’m really glad I wasn’t! A great read though.

United Kingdom on Jun 03, 2023

VILLA Tania: muy fácil de leer con el característico estilo del autor
es una visión muy divertida y cínica sobre los países europeos que visitó.

Mexico on Oct 18, 2020

Raghav Bhatt: I had read Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything and simply loved it. That was a few years ago. Recently, I picked up this present book by the author, having visited Europe some time ago myself. It is hard to keep up a standard, and given how much I enjoyed A Short History, I would have been ok had this one been lesser in the enjoyment it gave me (of course, this one predates A Short History). But the book lived up to Mr. Bryson's image, and more. It is a quite simply magnificent tour through the heart of Europe. Geography, History, Food, People and their behaviour, you name it, the author has not left anything untouched. All with a brilliant sense of humour. If you don't want to travel across Europe yourself after reading this, in the style and with the enthusiasm of Bill Bryson, it would be a surprise. Thrilling read. I am going to read his book on Australia, Down Under, next.

India on Feb 06, 2019

artemis 1291: When John Steinbeck, who wrote The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and Travels with Charley: In Search of America, met a young man in traveling across America in his converted camping car named Rocinante, he met a young man who longed to travel to Europe with the idealization of the continent as he had seen in magazines and books. Steinbeck, being already weary of the existential dealings on the road, advised him, “What’s the need when the world is conveniently at your fingertips in colors without all those travel-related hassles? You can see the world in books and films and still keep your ideal images of Europe.” Which is exactly why Bill Bryson, an American- born British writer renowned for his great sense of wit and superb command of the English language, decided to embark on his journey once again twenty years after he and his pal Katz backpacked across Europe. Bryson wanted to see Europe in itself with a tabula rosa and write something about the cultures that seemed at once so different and yet so oddly similar in his own eyes. The result is the touchy-feely, impetuously hilarious, and astonishingly insightful Neither Here Nor There.

Bryson’s journey began and...

United States on Feb 18, 2018

Anthony Franklin: This is the kind of book that is both humorous and light enough to sit down and read in a single afternoon (I read it in spurts over a long weekend myself), but also offers a certain level of depth or introspection that is worthy of pulling back off the shelf for a re-read.

I am biased I admit; I deeply enjoy Bryson's writing tone that veers from humble and introspective one minute to cynical and crass the next, while managing to never take himself too seriously. His humour is pointed, witty, but never striving for a punchline so it is refreshing. He often borders on being self-depracatory (usually toward his own English sensibilities) but more importantly wastes no opportunity to poke fun at other culture's idiosyncrasies when warranted. Bryson is the kind of traveler and author that will unashamedly poke fun at how awful Italians drive or at their failure to queue up in a line with any semblance of order, while simultaneously remarking how he loves the pandemonium that the country and it's people are alive with.

If you are the kind of reader that holds world travel and travel writing on same sacred estoeric level, this might not be the book for you, BUT..... if you...

United States on Nov 08, 2013

Owl: Around 1990, Bill Bryson felt a yen to wander lonely as a cloud in Europe. A middle-aged, generally uxurious fella, it irked him that in 17 years of living in Great Britain, he'd only been across the Channel for three brief visits.

So off he went, pack on his back, but not alone. With him were some understandably indelible memories of 20 years earlier when he and his friend, Katz, lit out for the old country. Bryson, 1990, follows mostly in the footsteps of Bryson & Katz, 1970.

Readers may recall Katz as his companion on the Appalachian Trail in "A Walk Through the Woods." There, Katz's direct action against whatever ailed him (like lightening his pack by throwing most of their food over cliff) and briskly-to-the-sharp-point complaints played well with Bryson's more positive (or at least determined) spin for really funny, now iconic book.

This time, Bryson goes it alone as traveller & writer. He has to be both Katz & Bryson for the re-run. Now & again, Bryson not only recalls Katz but seems to be channeling Katz's kvetches. However, kvetch or not, much is really, really funny and rarely, rarely dull. This 1990-2 trip seems both the best of...

United States on Sep 21, 2013