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Mar 26, 2014zipread rated this title 2 out of 5 stars
Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe. --- by Bill Bryson. Perhaps to be re-titled “Curly, Larry and Moe meet Rick Steves” (with my apologies to Rick Steves). This book features Bryson before he grew up. One Summer: America 1927, was written in 2013, “Neither Here nor There” in the very early 1990’s. There’s so much in this book to make you wince. Sophomoric humour. Fault-finding and nit-picking. Scatalogical fixation. Pre-pubescent pre-occupation with sex. Stereotyping of the kind that I thought had disappeared years ago. Can’t we get away from Nazi jack-booters at least a quarter (and now a half century) after WW II? It just doesn't fly. Unless you’ve had at least a few beers. I wonder if today’s Bryson is happy with “Neither…”Bryson should have stayed home and grown up. And to think I was silly enough to expect something somewhat serious. No, this sort of book could give tourists a bad name. Now after all that you might justifiably ask, what about the book? Did I finish reading it or what. Well, yes, I did finish reading it. Sometimes a dose of politically incorrect, pre-pubescent non-humour may not be all bad. Judge for yourself.