This is my third Bill Bryson book. Thank goodness this was not my first, for I probably would not have picked up "In a Sunburned Country," and "A Walk In The Woods." Where Bryson's latest books are droll, witty and endearing, "The Lost Continent" is frequently petty, forced and mean. In this book Bryson travels around 38 states in a beat up Chevette, often through small towns and out of the way places not usually visited by many. He didn't have a very good trip.
Most of this book revolves around the author's put-downs of people he sees and caustic comments about places he visits. After a few hundred pages, the observations seem awfully gratuitous. Where disappointments, angst and difficult people were treated with amusement in his later books, here he often dismisses similar trials here with the brilliant and trenchant observation "FU". Not much authorship in those moments.
Not to say that there aren't some funny passages. Several times on the train, I found myself reading out loud. However, I also found myself speed reading ahead several times, an unfortunate first for a Bryson Book. Bryson's later works also weave a good deal of interesting historical background and place descriptions into the book. That is almost totally missing in this effort.
He occasionally comes up with some awfully good writing. For example, he described driving toward the mountains in Colorado as "driving into the opening credits of a Paramount Picture." (sic). Unfortunately, there are not enough of those moments and instead too many paragraphs describing how he had another bad meal in another bad town with too many ice cream and pizza parlors and not enough ambiance or fetching waitresses to suit his tastes. Bryson has produced much better. But don't let this book (or review) put you off an author whose books can be very satisfying companions. Just go for his more recent stuff.

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