A reread for me. This authors work will Never fail to entertain me or make me pig snort laugh out loud in public!
Update 13.01.2024 - I just love this authors work! I listened to this through Audible and piggy snorted all over again!

I made it to page 39 before I finally had enough. 39 unfunny pages - even though the author was clearly trying hard to make every paragraph of his book hilariously funny - about a narrow-minded American who, having lived in England, reckons himself a quasi European, yet makes fun of anything that is different from America.
British people using a knife and fork to eat a hamburger means they "do not understand certain of the fundamentals of eating", "Germans are flummoxed by humour, the Swiss have no concept of fun, the Spanish think there is nothing at all ridiculous about eating dinner at midnight" - when did lists of stereotypes become funny, and mocking other cultures start to pass as travel literature?

Bill Bryson is amazing. He captures the essence of the peculiarities of travel.. of people in general. I read this before going to London (also read Noted from a Small Island- about England which was also excellent).. If you've traveled or want to travel, it's a great little book full of entertaining short stories. I read part of the 'Belgium' chapter to my grandmother (she's from Antwerp) and she nearly went off her rocker. No really, she almost fell off her chair laughing. :o) I recommend.

At first, Bill Bryson comes across as one of the worst kinds of tourists. The one that always seems to have a problem with everything he encounters on a trip. The only excess baggage he seems to carry, lie between his ears. He's probably the last person you'd hope to be stuck with in a long flight or a train ride. But it's those fantastic observations he makes as a whiny tourist that makes him my favourite travel writer.

In Neither Here Nor There, he explores Europe in the early 90s. Since it was written around the fall of the Soviet block, with several societies welcoming a fresh lease of life at what would be the end of the cold war, many of his observations may not be prevalent today. But considering his times, it's amazing how the writer found humour in undertaking a journey across Europe in such a challenging atmosphere.

Whether it's his comical exaggeration or his profound epiphanies while travelling across foreign lands, there seem to be no half measures when it comes to Bryson. I'd only read Notes from a Small Island earlier, where we elaborated upon every little town he visited across UK. This journey, where is travelled to towns as diverse as Hammerfest in Norway to Sofia in Bulgaria, gave Bryson a far wider canvas and he exploited it fully.

You may skim through the pages wondering if the book is only full of laughs, and boy there's no dearth of it in this book. But carefully concealed in all his hilarious narratives are some gems that's make to stop and think.

While admiring the excesses of the uber-rich in Italy, he observed, "Isn´t it strange how wealth is always wasted on the rich?"

While he cribbed at the appalling standards of basic tourist facilities in one of economic stays, he yearned, "I sat on a toilet watching the water run thinking what an odd thing tourism is. You fly off to a strange land, eagerly abandoning all the comforts of home and then expend vast quantities of time and money in a largely futile effort to recapture the comforts you wouldn’t have lost if you hadn’t left home in the first place."

On his sudden decision to to take a flight on a whim, he declared, "Traveling is more fun-- hell, life is more fun--if you can treat it as a series of impulses."

My favourite Bryson quote however comes early in the book, when he elaborates the why he travels at all, "I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can't read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can't even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses."

I could keep digging out such gems, possibly when I read it again. And I think the style in which it's written allows a reader to pick any chapter at ramdom and still find it amusing. I'd possibly carry this book the next time I visit Europe, and insist on reading some of the chapters at the very places Bryson visits. Though you should be warned about the outrageous sounds that will emanate from your being when you stifle a laughter while reading Bryson in public.

"There is something about the momentum of travel that makes you want to just keep moving, to never stop." I could say the same about reading Bill Bryson's books, and I sincerely cannot wait to pick up my next one.

You know the canonical essay question, "If you could meet anyone in history, who would it be?" My answer is Bill Bryson. He's a treasure. I'd love to watch him write. I imagine him tugging scraps of paper from him pockets, pawing through notes, scribbling a few sentences through the haze of pipe smoke, and chuckling a bit before pulling out more notes. He's hilarious. He commands the English language like Pele commands a soccer ball, etching metaphors that resonate and wonder why you didn't think of it first.

I have to admit that Bryson is a funny man and I chuckled several times while reading this book BUT he is also very snarky and not politically correct. This book covers his travels in Europe from Norway to Istanbul and his complaints about everything, including the tourists....hey, isn't he a tourist?

Sweden....... beautiful people and the women try to catch what sun there is while sunbathing topless.
Paris...loves the city, hates the people who "needed the Americans to help them win the war".
Germany.....he made so many Nazi related comments(!) that I don't have the space to include them. But they have good beer
Austria.........the women are ugly
Capri.....loved it but the people were strange.
And ad nauseam.

I am probably in the minority since his books are extremely popular but I felt that many of his comments were unnecessary and biased, He can be a very entertaining writer but this book was not worthy of his talents.

This book it’s a tongue in cheek travelogue, it shouldn’t be taken seriously.
True, Bryson’s attitude towards countries other than Britain or USA are not exactly amenable, makes you wonder why does he bother visit them? Admittedly, his tone tone sounds snotty, snarky and disrespectful but I don’t think Bryson intends to offend anyone. It’s the equivalent to listening to a politically incorrect stand up comedian describing his overseas trip, full of comic adventures and funny anecdotes, you wouldn't take his comments seriously and grudge him, would you?

Granted, it’s not to everyone’s taste, but I took it for what I think it is: humor. The book gave me some chuckles and good laughs, I liked it. Besides, I learned a few surprising facts, e.g. which country in Europe was the last one to give women suffrage Liechtenstein in 1984! compare that with NZ: 1893
If you are an over-sensitive member of the EU (particularly if you are Swede, Norwegian, Swiss, Austrian or Bulgarian) and full of country pride, avoid this book.
If you are looking for a travel guide to Europe, look elsewhere, this book, written in 1990, is dated anyway.

Fav. Quotes:

The best that can be said for Norwegian television is that it gives you the sensation of a coma without the worry and inconvenience.

He gave me one of those impassive Gallic shrugs – the one where they drop their chin to belt level and try to push their ears to the top of their head with their shoulders. You have to be Gallic to do it. It translates roughly as ‘Life is a bucket of shit, monsieur, I quite agree, and while I am prepared to acknowledge this fact, I shall offer you no sympathy because, monsieur, this is your bucket of shit.’

I love the way the Italians park. You turn any street corner in Rome and it looks as if you’ve just missed a parking competition for blind people. Cars are pointed in every direction, half on the pavements and half off, facing in, facing sideways, blocking garages and side streets and phone boxes, fitted into spaces so tight that the only possible way out would be through the sun roof.

Q. How can you spot a Swiss anarchist? A. He doesn’t use the post code.

This was printed in 1992, so Bill is traveling around Europe just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and he doesn't have cell phones or the internet readily available. It makes for quaint travel adventures, really.

However, once I realized how long ago this was, I didn't really appreciate Bill Bryson's grumpiness. I thought he got grumpier as he got older, and some of it is quite funny, but I don't feel he really has an excuse here to complain as much as he does. Especially at the end, when he mentions returning to his pregnant (!!) wife--you mean you really just ditched her for months to travel around Europe, ogling foreign women?! Because he makes a lot of comments about women in other countries. Maybe it's just reading it in a post Me Too world, but I thought he made a lot of cringe worthy observations. I don't think I would've been okay with it in 1992, and I think now I'd have more company than perhaps in the past.

That being said, this is one of his earlier books and I think he was still finding his voice. When he dives into the history of the area, or explains some custom or relates a funny footnote in a city's history, those are the highlights. I wish he had done that for every location he visited, but alas, most of it is describing where he drank coffee in each city. It's too bad. I think I'll stick to his history type books more than his travel ones in the future.

Even read almost three decades after the first reading, Bill Bryson’s take on his European travels is still entertaining and often laugh-out-loud funny (if seeming more sexist and politically incorrect), but William Roberts narration of the audio version does it a disservice. Bryson’s own narration, when heard on other audio versions, is amiable and a little wondrous, often bemused, while Roberts changes the tone, making it sharper, snarkier, even a bit nasty. 5★s for the content, 2★s for the narration.

In my opinion someone who obviously doesn't like to travel and has a problem with different cultures and their way of life, and other languages shouldn't travel as much as Mr Bryson does. And he definitely shouldn't write books about it. I've tried to read this book several times and always started with a different country, but I always had enough after only one chapter. I don't think it's funny at all, it's annoying how he tries to be funny by insulting others and their way of life. I expected something funny, even sarcastic and was sadly disappointed.

After finishing this book one thing is crystal clear, Mr. Bryson and I would not make very good travel companions.

Out of 22 Chapters and 26 cities in total there were only 3 cities where the author didn’t bash the locals, their lack of English (What did he expect?) horrible food, noisy streets, and unfriendly service……… the list goes on and on. I also noticed that the cities he had been to as a youth always left him disappointed and the few he now visited for the first time got glowing reviews.

It seems that nostalgia also makes a poor travel companion.

I love to travel and act like a total tourist, even in my own country and I think perhaps Bill Bryson should hang up his travel hat as he seemed to be harder and harder to please as the book went on.

The book is also full of offensive clichés (French are arrogant and rude, Italians loud, Germans humorless) and I suspect I have just outgrown his brand of humor.

Ignore that Bryson comes off like the worst kind of tourist, always complaining about the food, about how hotels are too expensive, how waiters are surly, how trains are slow, how people don't speak English, and every other stereotype of the pampered American tourist unwilling to make any effort to fit in. Ignore that the only parts of Europe that seem to spark any excitement are the landscapes or some of the architecture. Ignore the constant needling of European bureaucracy. Ignore all that, and what's left?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...

The French have good food, but are rude and dislike "us" (whether British people or Americans was unclear). Americans can't make good electronics. The Japanese can, but can't name them. The Germans are industrious and efficient. The Bulgarians are poor but happy with the little that they have. The Italians talk with their hands and are terrible drivers. The Dutch are weed-smoking hippies. The Scandinavians are rule-obsessed and try to lock life down into predictability. All Europeans are obsessed with sex.

This is garbage. There are no memorable characters in this book other than Bryson, and I never once got the sense that he even thought of any of the people he met as a person other than as just a Frenchman or a Japanese tourist (with camera, naturally). The only connection he seems to have is when he finds a beautiful woman and thinks about making a more personal connection, but there's almost nothing else that lets anyone stand out in his mind. The only other character I can think of is the Bulgarian bus driver, I have no sense of his personality, and the taxi driver is later compared directly to him so he's just another archetype anyway.

In The Roads to Sata, there's a quote that sums up what's best in travel writing:

"Do you like the Japanese?"
"Which Japanese?"
"The Japanese?"
"Which Japanese?"

Neither Here nor There is the worst in travel writing. Avoid it at all costs.