Cheap Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe (Book) (Bill Bryson) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe

A funny way to improve your cultural knowledge
In his book "Neither here nor there" Bill Bryson writes about the experiences he made when he was travelling through nearly the whole of Europe, fluent in only one language (which is English).
He starts in Hammerfest, Norway (as far north as you can get in the world by public means of transport, he says), goes to Paris, Brussels, Belgium, Aachen and Cologne in Germany, then on to Amsterdam, Hamburg in Germany again, Copenhagen in Denmark, then onto Sweden (Gothenburg and Stockholm), then down to Rome, then to southern Italy (Naples, Capri and Sorrento), up to the top (Milan, Como), through Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Yugoslavia, Sofia in Bulgaria, and finally Istanbul.
As you can see, by reading this book you'll learn a lot about European countries with their different languages, customs, habits and ways of life. But this isn't one of those boring highbrow books, that you can't read without falling asleep - no! - once you start reading you can't stop. Bryson has a unique brand of humour that I personally like very much. He is able to crack jokes about any situation, no matter how hopelessly and unpleasing they might have been.
Especially as an European citizen you'll have a lot of fun because you recognize all the stereotypes that you know either from telling or personal experience. And be prepared for some nasty jokes about your compatriots!
All in all I can highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to get to know European countries in an amusing and interesting way.

---

Rucksack traveling through Europe.
"Traveling is more fun," Bill Bryson (aka "Bernt Bjornson") observes in this hilarious account of his backpack travels through Europe, "hell, life is more fun--if you can treat it as a series of impulses" (p. 131). After first backpacking through Britain, Ireland, Scandanavia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy in 1972 (p. 13), as a "skinny, shy" 20-year-old American from Iowa, lost in "private astonishment" (p. 20), and then returning with Stephan Katz (Bryson's memorable hiking companion in A WALK IN THE WOODS) the following summer (p. 20), Bryson attempts to recapture that experience nearly twenty years later in NEITHER HERE NOR THERE. Bryson lived in England for fifteen years before setting out on his midlife pilgrimage from Hammerfest, Norway to Oslo, Paris, Brussels, Belgium, Cologne, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Rome, Naples, Florence, Milan, Como, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Yugoslavia, Sofia and Istanbul. While the result is characteristic Bryson, this book doesn't quite hit the mark of some of Bryson's other books (e.g., A WALK IN THE WOODS, A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING, NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND), primarily for the following reason.

Somewhere along the way, Bryson lost his sense of "private astonishment" for Europe. Wherever he travels in this book, and as hard has he tries, Bryson is unable to recapture his youthful sense of wonder for Europe again; it is neither here nor there. As a result, and as numerous other reviewers have previously noted, this is the travel narrative of a xenophobic tourist, who finds very little to praise about his experience traveling through Europe. Instead, we find Bryson tramping through Europe, rather indistinguishable from the hordes of other boorish tourists who overrun major tourist destinations like Paris, Florence, Brussels, Stockholm, Rome, in search of inexpensive American food like burgers and beer, offering us very few original insights along the way, attempting instead to entertain us with sophomoric and mean-spirited humor. While many rucksack travelers (including me) have known the "private astonishment" Bryson experienced while traveling through Europe in his younger years, few readers would ever want to visit the Europe Bryson has described in this book.

G. Merritt

---

A tailspin into mundanity
after reading "A Walk In the Woods", I was extremely excited to get my paws on another Bryson book. I was dissapointed. "Neither here nor there" has about half the humor, one tenth of the adventure and even less of the overall appeal of "A walk in the woods". It is a book that starts off on a promising note, with a description of his quest to see the northern lights in northern norway in the middle of winter; it had me thinking, 'great, here we go, typical Bryson, doing whacky things that come to him on a whim'. However, as the book progresses it digresses into a mundane journal of the rather ordinary wanderings of a solo traveler. Part of the problem is that he makes very little effort to interact with others. Because of this there is an awful lot of, " I went from the train station, found a hotel, had some dinner, drank a coke, went to bed" kind of "action" that even Brysons astounding propensity for making ordinary situations seem extraordinary cannot save it. One other major flaw it seems is that Brysons trip had no ultimate goal, no purpose. It seems to me that most satisfying travel literature begins with the author expressing a desperate need to find or achieve something, then chronicles the pursuit and struggle to meet those ends, cope with failure, and come to some kind of grand catharsis. My all time favorite, "tales of a female nomad" is the story of a womans need to find something fufilling in her life and in herself after essentially losing the "family woman role" that had come to define her. Her travels are not planned to a T, but she does travel cognisent of purpose/goal/need, and this makes that book very compelling indeed. I am not saying that travel literature must have all of those elements, but at least a little dose of purpose would have gone a long way towards making this book compelling. Do yourself a favor and put the 15 bucks you would spend buying this book in savings toward your own trip to Europe.