With a razor wit and a kind heart, Bryson serves up a colorful tale of boredom, kitsch, and beauty when you least expect it. Gentler elements aside, The Lost Continent is an amusing book. Here's Bryson on the women of his native state: "I will say this, however--and it's a strange, strange thing--the teenaged daughters of these fat women are always utterly delectable ... I don't know what it is that happens to them, but it must be awful to marry one of those nubile cuties knowing that there is a time bomb ticking away in her that will at some unknown date make her bloat out into something huge and grotesque, presumably all of a sudden and without much notice, like a self-inflating raft from which the pin has been yanked."

Yes, Bill, but be honest: what do you really think?

Product Description
An unsparing and hilarious account of one man's rediscovery of America and his search for the perfect small town.

When I started reading this book, I laughed so much my wife wouldn't let me read it in bed. Then she picked it up and discovered how funny it was, and wanted to read it before me. Eventually we compromised, and kept it in the car; the rule was that whoever was driving had to read it to the driver. Several times, however, the reader was laughing so hard that they couldn't get comprehensible words out, and the driver had to pull over to the hard shoulder and grab the book for themselves.

Yes, he's a curmudgeon, as other reviewers here have noticed. That's just his style. He's not deep, either; his occasional ruminations aren't negligible, but he's no Mark Twain. But he has an acidly sharp eye for inanity and stupidity, and his anecdotal technique is flawless.

His other travel books are along much the same lines, but to me this is the funniest, though "A Walk in the Woods" does show he is capable of good introspective writing. "The Lost Continent" is sharp, satirical, acute, and unkind--wickedly funny in every sense of the word.


When it's not "boring," America's great!   July 9, 2000
 50 out of 61 found this review helpful

Pity poor Bill Bryson. He had the chance many of his readers would love to have--travel throughout the US with apparently no money or time constraints. (Even if a Chevy Chevette may not be everyone's idea of comfortable travel!) However, the main word Bryson can find to describe places he doesn't care for is the oft-repeated "boring." The Mississippi River is "flat and dull," and merely driving is almost invariably "boring," unless the scenery is spectacular. Ah, what's a guy to do when he has book to write? Carry on, despite overcrowded national parks, sleepy small towns, ignorant people and the occasional threatening weather. Still, in spite of the negative attitude Bryson so frequently adopts, the book is entertaining and enlightening. Perhaps I enjoyed it so much because I agree with so many of Bryson's views about the over-commercialization of America's natural wonders and historical places. I also sympathize with his regrets for the lost small towns, particularly the downtowns which have been decimated by the development of malls, strip malls, large discount stores and fast food franchises until all small towns look depressingly the same. Perhaps the best thing one can say about a book like this is that it made me want to make my own journey of exploration, to discover the country on my own. And that, I believe, is the response any travel writer would love to have. Bryson succeeds and so I recommend the book to all readers who can smile at the foibles of America and Americans, including, perhaps, themselves.


Depressing and repetitive. Move on to his other works   May 31, 2006
 28 out of 29 found this review helpful

I had high hopes for this book since I thoroughly enjoyed and laughed out loud while reading Bryson's 'In a Sunburned Country'. I was more than a little disappointed after finished `Lost Continent' I came away feeling more than a little disappointed.
Before I bought this book I was puzzled at the contrasting reviews here and I initially took the most of the negative reviews with a grain of salt. I figured these were written by people who mostly just took offense way too easily and were unable to laugh at themselves as Americans. I have to say though, after reading the book I find myself agreeing with some of the negative reviews of this book.

First off, as an American that has lived overseas for 3 years now, I feel I'm more than capable of looking at America with an objective eye. I'm completely aware of America's many shortcomings - ie. the propensity for urban sprawl, the seemingly declining interest in it's rich history, the ever growing dependence on technology and increasing laziness that invariably comes with it etc. etc.

Having said that, I still regard this book primarily as just one endless, tiring, repetitive rant by an unhappy man. One would be hard pressed to find more than a couple instances where Bryson spent more than three of four sentences at a time describing anything he found ENJOYABLE. As one reviewer pointed out, Bryson comes across as being exactly like the kind of people he constantly complains about in this book...rude, ignorant, and, just like Bryson himself, overweight (apparently he hasn't stepped in front of a mirror lately). One has to wonder why someone would put out a book that is so consistently sour in tone. If I had just finished such a thoroughly unsatisfying and unhappy trek as this, I would be hard pressed to come up with a good reason (other than a quick buck perhaps) to actually write a book about it. Let me get one thing straight, if this were a book about Canada or anywhere else outside the U.S. I would feel the same way. Yes, there are a few funny passages in his book, but his air of superiority along with the overuse of metaphors pretty much dampen it at times. As demonstrated in `In a Sunburned Country', his strength lies in sharing facts and history of the places he finds himself in, and the humor is always much more engaging when it isn't over the top and written as if he's trying to impress himself.

There was a span of about 12 years between the writing of `Lost Continent' and `In a Sunburned Country', and it shows. This is a younger Bryson, a man who seems to have a problem with every little detail, and it becomes increasingly tedious and irritating as the book goes on. He rarely displays anything other than contempt for the places he finds himself in. A couple of other reviewers also made valid points when they found it curious that (with the exception of his Iowa drug buddy) he never manages to engage anyone in anything resembling a meaningful conversation to actually get a handle on their mindset (as he did in "In A Sunburned Country' for instance). His interactions with locals are mostly limited to ordering food at local restaurants and asking for directions. He seems perfectly content coming to conclusions about entire groups of people based on no real substance and communication whatsoever.

In this book, sadly, he comes across as nothing more than a sarcastic, anti-social loner with a bone to pick with just about everyone and everything. Any remotely kind words he has about anything (and they are few and far between) are all but smothered by the sour tone of the book as a whole. I SO wish I could recommend this book for others to read, but I'd be lying if I said it's time well spent.


A bizarre mixture of nostalgia and bitterness   April 10, 2001
 21 out of 28 found this review helpful

As with most of Bryson's books, he reveals too much of his own personality, which is pretty distasteful. This rather privileged baby boomer son of the American upper-middle class (he admits that his father was a well-paid sportswriter) roams across the country, finding fault with virtually everything he sees and experiences. It's amazing and disheartening how many of his observations are just exercises in bashing the white American working class and lower-middle class, those "tacky" people who actually shop at K-Mart. While in those sections that describe his travels in the Southern states he takes great pains to express his sympathy for oppressed blacks, he has no compunctions in writing about lower-class whites in language that would be considered incredibly racist if his victims were members of racial or ethnic minority groups.

On the other hand, the last few chapters of the book, when he has finished his grand circuit of the United States and has finally returned to his beloved Iowa, degenerate into almost a hokey Midwestern boosterism. He tells us ad nauseum about the wonderful, homespun virtues of the Midwest, and especially Iowa, in contrast to the alleged coldness and hostility of Westerners and Southerners. (Perhaps people in the latter two regions had seen his photo in his previous books and recognized him, which might explain their behavior; I certainly wouldn't want any contact with Bryson.) Ironically, Bryson chose to settle in New England when he finally returned to the United States, which suggests that his nostalgia for the good old Midwest was short-lived.

I finished this book, which Bryson dedicated to his late father, with the impression that it was a kind of emotional catharsis for him after his father's death. There seems to be a strong whiff of unfinished business about this whole work, as if it were a long apology to a parent with whom he had lost contact forever.

In short, Bryson is an glib but shallow writer with a bad case of Anglophilia. If he finds American life so repugnant, he should probably return the the U.K. permanently and take out British citizenship.


Initially entertaining, but quickly becomes tired   September 1, 2000
 19 out of 26 found this review helpful

Since I am iconoclastic and have a sardonic sense of humor a number of friends told me how hysterical this book was prompting me to buy it. However, I had reservations based upon my disappointment with Bryson's "Notes from a Small Island". About half way through this book my sentiments with this book were similar. Initially his observations make you laugh, but they soon begin to sound shrill and sometimes mean. The ongoing descriptons of gluttonous and overweight Americans quickly become old and ring unkind. They are also ironic from someone who continually describes retiring to his hotel room with a six pack and a package of Reeses cups.

For those who enjoy sardonic humor the book starts out strong. Bryson skewers mundane, middle brow, consumption obsessed American culture. However, Bryson often undermines his valid points about the suffocation of America's small towns due to those proliferation of soleless strip malls along the highways lining the communities' outskirts. The author is an unabashed Anglophile and rather than simply allowing these apt observations to stand by themselves he diminishes them by pointing out how these American communities pale in his eyes when compared with those of Britain. He also suggests that welcoming, seemingly credulous,Americans are somehow less capable, even less intelligent, and certainly less sophisticated (in his opinion) than their British counterparts.

Clearly there are many things than can be improved in the United States and we have wasted much of our heritage through unrestained commericalism and development. However, Philadelphia is more than a slum, New York is more than a citadel of crime and depravity, and there are certainly more than a few handsome, viable, culturally sophisticated communities in the entire United States. At the end of his tour of the country he clearly nostalgically, but almost begrudeonly, warms to and acknowledges that there are some positive aspects of American culture, At that point, however, the reader has become alienated. Many of us realize what is lacking in many of our communities and we don't need Bill Bryson to validate what's right about the United States or much less to suggest that England is the ideal prototype for us to model.