Bill Bryson's very first travel book, a sidesplittingly funny road trip around America.
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.
Author ProfileBill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. He settled in England in 1977, and lived for many years with his English wife and four children in North Yorkshire. He and his family then moved to America for a few years but have now returned to the UK. His the bestselling travel books include Neither Here Nor There, Notes From a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods and Down Under . He is also the author of the prizewinning A Short History of Nearly Everything. His most recent book is The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.
ReviewsHigh-spirited…hilarious','Hilarious…he can be suave, sarcastic and very funny…not your typical travel writer','Funny as this wonderful book is, it is also a serious indictment of the American way of life and the direction in which it is going…he is genuinely shocked, as we are, by the statistics of affluence, poverty, crime and culture that he drops in hither and thither','A very funny performance, littered with wonderful lines and memorable images'
