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  • Notes From a Big Country

  • By: Bill Bryson
  • Narrated by: William Roberts
  • Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (1,265 ratings)
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Notes From a Big Country

By: Bill Bryson
Narrated by: William Roberts
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Summary

Des Moines, Iowa-born writer Bryson's first success was the travel book The Lost Continent. After living in England for several years, he wanted to go back to the USA to find the perfect little US town of his past, he lovingly called Amalgam. More travel books followed, in the form of Neither Here Nor There (where he travels through Europe), Notes From A Small Island (where he travels around the United Kingdom, before returning back to the USA to live there for good) and A Walk In The Woods (where he walks the Appalachian trail). After moving back to the States, Bryson started to write a column for The Mail on Sunday Night and Day magazine. This is a collection of these column entries. Bryson writes about everything from everyday chores, to suing people, the beach, TV, movies, air conditioners, college, Americana, injury dangers, wasting resources, and holiday seasons.

©1998 Bill Bryson (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"This is Bryson at his best." ( Amazon.co.uk)

What listeners say about Notes From a Big Country

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Bitter or Sweet ? I'm not sure !

I really enjoy Bill Bryson and his sense of observational humour really appeals however, although this was funny at times, because it was a collection of smaller clips I found that I could not get my teeth into it as much. It is worth having in a collection because it is enjoyable but I would not put it high on my list of Bill Bryson must haves. I was expecting it to be like Notes From A Small Island but in this respect I was a little dissappointed.

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24 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
  • AB
  • 13-09-18

Bryson is simply brilliant...

I loved every minute of this..
Bill Brysons observational and situational humour is just fantastic, and I often find myself laughing out loud at some of his observations.
I really enjoyed previous books chronicalling Brysons travels, but this one is slightly different. This is a series of newspaper column articles that he wrote in the late 90's. He covers all manner of different topics, and never fails to put his trademark spin on his findings!
William Roberts does a great job narrating, and he's so good at encapsulating the humour laced throughout the book. I could listen to the Bryson/Roberts combination forever!
Recommended..

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Great book, terrible narration

As an avid fan of Bill Bryson, I couldn't wait to download and play this, possibly my favourite book of his. Unfortunately the narrator's voice is so grating and misinterpretive of the content, I cannot listen for more than 10 minutes at a time. It's such a shame. I gave 3 stars for the content, I really love this book, but had to take away for the narration.

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great book, well written.

Overall a fantastic buy but for me William Roberts does not have a voice I appreciate listening to hours of.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Prefer Bill reading his books

While Bill's stories are always entertaining, I much prefer the versions where it is Bill himself reading them.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

:) loved it

Loved the book and I enjoyed the narrator's reading.... If you like Bill Bryson's witty view of life you will love this one

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Very Entertaining

As always, Mr Bryson is very entertaining, and he provides a very interesting account of the trials and tribultations of returning to your mother country after years of being an Alien in another land.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Sadly it doesn't really work as an audiobook

I fell in love Bill Bryson's books over the last year thanks to the genius narration of William Roberts.

Sadly this is a collection of short newspaper articles that while would be engaging to read, don't really translate that well to audiobook form. You find yourself just getting into the topic at hand and then it's over, and onto something completely different.

I'll be picking up the book version of this to read it, but it's one to skip in audiobook form.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

The usual

Brilliant written as usual.
Excellently read as usual.
A joy to listen to as usual.
Do yourself a favour and get this book.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Short and sweet that's too long.

This is a collection of all his articles from a long time ago, but they are amusing enough.

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1 person found this helpful