Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe | Bill Bryson

Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe | Bill Bryson | Bryson at his Best

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Neither Here nor T...

	Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe Bill Bryson Harper Perennial, 1999 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 163 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

One of his best

Unlike "Small Island," this book sticks to big cities that are familiar to travelers. Alternating the present trip with a years-ago trip with Katz makes this more interesting. He has his rants and he sometimes whines, but he is always funny and the narrative moves right along. This is not a travel guide but a series of essays.

Bryson at his Best

This book is hilarious.

If you've ever travelled Europe or wanted to this book puts you into the passenger's seat. One of his earlier works, Bryson has the uncanny ability to distill what's funny about a people, place or situation and stamp his own brand of humour on it.

I've read all his books, I reckon this is 'Bryson's Best' to date.

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Knock the dust off of your passport

This book is by no means meant to be a typical travel guide. This is more like a memoir of sorts. A memoir of a guy trying to relive an adventurous part of his youth, before he sells out to a middle aged mundane life. In stead of getting details about where to stay, where to eat, what to see... you get an impression. To me, this was vastly more interesting than a list of who-what-where.

You hear snippets of Katz... well, read A Walk in the Woods to learn more about Bryson's friend, reminds me of Seinfeld's Kramer. To Bryson's credit, he doesn't try to polish his story, or try to make himself out as anything he is not. He just tells it like it is. If anything, Bryson encourages armchair tourists to get out and live a little.

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3 1/2 stars. More Katz!

I definitely liked this sarcastic but warm book about solitary travels thru Europe, interlaced with fragments of a journey taken years earlier with a certain weirdo named Katz.

The glimpses into European culture are just great- how movie tickets are sold here, how food is served with attitude there. Also, there is great comedy in the scenes of being an odd duck in places like Lichtenstein and MIlan, but also rewarding beauty in Capri and Paris.

I wish two things: that there had been more about Katz, who is one of the most misanthropic figures I have come across in a while and that generally makes for good comedy; also, that the last three chapters hadn't felt quite so tired. I suspect that that is just a realistic impression of how the author did feel towards the end of his journey but it was anti-climactic.

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