I'm a Stranger Here Myself:

By Angeleah A.

    

    After visiting a foreign country for a length of time to the point of being caught up in a completely different lifestyle and society, and then when finally returning home, experiencing a form of reverse culture shock is what happened to Bill Bryson when he moved back to the U.S. after living in England for two decades. 

     This book is a collection of weekly columns he wrote for the Mail on Sunday newspaper from 1996 to 1998. Bryson has fun talking about American food, going shopping, holiday seasons, going to the movies, going to the beach, the U.S. postal service, U.S. tax forms, and dozens of awkward and humorous encounters he had with fellow citizens.

    I really like the style of Bill Bryson's writing. He knows how to make a reader laugh with content that they will understand and agree with. This is my first Bryson book but I want to keep reading his work.

    One of my favorite quotes from the book that really captures what the author was trying to say about the time gap/new differences in America is, "coming back to your native land after an absence of many years is a surprisingly unsettling business, a little like waking from a long coma. Time, you discover, has wrought changes that leave you feeling mildly foolish and out of touch. You proffer hopelessly inadequate sums when making small purchases. You puzzle over ATM machines and automated gas pumps and pay phones, and are astounded to discover, by means of a stern grip on your elbow, that gas station road maps are no longer free." My favorite quote that captures the humor of this book is, "some weeks ago I announced to my wife that I was going to the supermarket with her next time she went because the stuff she kept bringing home was -- how can I put this? -- not fully in the spirit of American eating. I mean, here we were living in a paradise of junk food -- the country that gave the world cheese in a spray can -- and she kept bringing home healthy stuff like fresh broccoli and packets of Swedish crispbread. It was because she was English, of course. She didn't really understand the rich, unrivaled possibilities for greasiness and goo that the American diet offers. I longed for artificial bacon bits, melted cheese in a shade of yellow unknown to nature, and creamy chocolate fillings, sometimes all the in same product. I wanted food that squirts when you bite into it or plops onto your shirt front in such gross quantities that you have to rise very, very carefully from the table and sort of limbo over to the sink to clean yourself up."

    Overall I would definitely recommend this book and it is easy to find online through Amazon, and at most bookstores.