The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America

by Bill Bryson (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1990

  $3.40

• Used

  Paperback
  1999

  $4.34

  I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to'. And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England, he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of trim and sunny place where the films of his youth were set. Instead, his search led him to Anywhere, USA; a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by lookalike people with a penchant for synthetic fibres. Travelling around thirty-eight of the lower states - united only in their mind-numbingly dreary uniformity - he discovered a continent that was doubly lost; lost to itself because blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a stranger in his own land. The Lost Continent is a classic of travel literature - hilariously, stomach-achingly funny, yet tinged with heartache - and the book that first staked Bill Bryson's claim as the most beloved writer of his generation.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1992

  $4.19

  This volume contains humorous accounts of two journeys, one taken across America, the other a trek across Europe. The Lost Continent is an account of one man's rediscovery of America and his search for the perfect small town. Instead he finds a continent that is doubly lost: lost to itself because it is blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; and lost to him because he has become a foreigner in his own country. In Neither Here Nor There , the author journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the European continent, to Istanbul. In doing so he retraces his steps as a student 20 years before, visiting countries including Norway, France and Italy.