Bill Bryson on British culture

As I blogged earlier, the last couple of weeks have been taken up with listening to Bill Bryson's "Notes from a Small Island" on CD (which reminds me that I need to take it back to the library)

Bill has a new book out which is on a Joe Moran-esque 'social history' theme.

The book is called "AT HOME" and is a social history of the objects that are found in our houses. Have just got it for half price - nice :)

Bill was in the news the other day as he was talking at the Hay festival, and talked about British culture.

Bill is a fellow resident of a small village in Norfolk (although I don't live in a former rectory)

(Also Springwatch started yesterday, and that's just down the road from us. It's all happening in Norfolk...)

I mentioned already the wealth of YouTube clips from Bryson's earlier series "Notes from a Small Island"

Comments

complexitybenjamin said…

Notes from a Small Island was a text in my A Level English course, and we went to see him speak at the Sheffield City Hall as a class trip. Most interestingly, part of our coursework involved doing a piece of creative writing in which we imagined we were Bill Bryson visiting Sheffield and what his impressions would be (in the manner he does with other towns in this book - he misses out Sheffield!). I didn't appreciate the geography in this at the time. I loved that piece, unfortunately I've lost it, along with most other writings from that time, though maybe its up in my parents loft somewhere, waiting to be rediscovered.

7 June 2010 at 13:06

Alan Parkinson said…

Thanks Ben
An interesting text to have studied.
Just think of all those lost works in the lofts of the world.
I wonder what Bryson would have made of Sheffield...
He now lives about 20 minutes away from me in the same rural isolation

7 June 2010 at 14:59