Diane's Reviews > I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away

Have you ever visited a foreign country for a length of time, to the point where you were caught up in a completely different lifestyle and society, and then when you finally returned home, you experienced a form of reverse culture shock?

That is what happened to Bill Bryson when he moved back to the U.S. after living in England for two decades. This delightful book is a collection of weekly columns he wrote for the Mail on Sunday newspaper from 1996 to 1998. Bryson has fun talking about American food, going shopping, holiday seasons, going to the movies, going to the beach, the U.S. postal service, U.S. tax forms, and dozens of awkward and humorous encounters he had with fellow citizens.

Even though some of the columns showed their age a bit (such as referencing pre-Internet computers and habits) or they included statistics from the 1990s when Bryson was trying to make a point, the pieces were still largely relevant and got at the heart of what it was like to live in America.

Q&A
Is this your favorite Bryson book?
No, that honor would go to "A Walk in the Woods," with "At Home" getting second place.

Would you recommend this to fellow readers?
Yes, but I would say that I don't think it should be the first Bryson book you read. The short columns are fun, but they're not as cohesive as his travelogues or history books.

Is this one of those times when you would recommend listening to the audiobook instead of reading the print?
Yes, I would. Bryson is a wonderful narrator and I think I enjoyed the book more because I listened to him tell these shorter stories.

Why are you reading so many Bill Bryson books? You're getting a bit obsessive. We're concerned and we're thinking of an intervention.
WHOA. Everyone can calm down. I'm not obsessed, I've just been working my way through a collection of his audiobooks. They are a delightful way to pass my daily commute to work. You should try it -- some days a Bryson story makes me laugh so hard that it brings tears to my eyes. It's a great way to start the day. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go listen to his book about visiting Australia.

Some favorite quotes:

"Coming back to your native land after an absence of many years is a surprisingly unsettling business, a little like waking from a long coma. Time, you discover, has wrought changes that leave you feeling mildly foolish and out of touch. You proffer hopelessly inadequate sums when making small purchases. You puzzle over ATM machines and automated gas pumps and pay phones, and are astounded to discover, by means of a stern grip on your elbow, that gas station road maps are no longer free."

"Some weeks ago I announced to my wife that I was going to the supermarket with her next time she went because the stuff she kept bringing home was -- how can I put this? -- not fully in the spirit of American eating. I mean, here we were living in a paradise of junk food -- the country that gave the world cheese in a spray can -- and she kept bringing home healthy stuff like fresh broccoli and packets of Swedish crispbread. It was because she was English, of course. She didn't really understand the rich, unrivaled possibilities for greasiness and goo that the American diet offers. I longed for artificial bacon bits, melted cheese in a shade of yellow unknown to nature, and creamy chocolate fillings, sometimes all the in same product. I wanted food that squirts when you bite into it or plops onto your shirt front in such gross quantities that you have to rise very, very carefully from the table and sort of limbo over to the sink to clean yourself up."

"I'm going to have to be quick because it's a Sunday and the weather is glorious and Mrs. Bryson has outlined a big, ambitious program of gardening. Worse, she's wearing what I nervously call her Nike expression -- the one that says, 'Just do it.' Now don't get me wrong. Mrs. Bryson is a rare and delightful creature and goodness knows my life needs structure and supervision, but when she gets out a pad and pen and writes the words 'Things to Do' (vigorously underscored several times) you know it's going to be a long time till Monday."

[On why his mother was not a great cook] To be perfectly fair to her, my mother had several strikes against her in the kitchen department. To begin with, she couldn't have been a great cook even if she had wanted to. She had a career, you see -- she worked for the local newspaper, which meant that she was always flying in the door two minutes before it was time to put dinner on the table. On top of this, she was a trifle absentminded. Her particular specialty was to cook things while they were still in the packaging. I was almost full-grown before I realized that Saran Wrap wasn't a sort of chewy glaze. A combination of haste, forgetfulness, and a charming incompetence where household appliances were concerned meant that most of her cooking experiences were punctuated with billows of smoke and occasional small explosions. In our house, as a rule of thumb, you knew it was time to eat when the firemen departed."

My rating: 3.5 stars rounded up to 4