The road to little dribbling : adventures of an American in Britain

Really don't understand the negative reviews

I had always compared Bill Bryson's "Notes from a Small Island," which utterly delighted me and was one of the most hilarious and captivating books I've ever read, to Paul Thereoux's "The Kingdom by the Sea," which makes Britain out to be the most unfortunate and horrible place on the entire planet. Into my comparison comes the new "The Road to Little Dribbling." Or, perhaps, I should not say new. Although I had it set for pre-order on my Kindle for some time and read it pretty much immediately after it downloaded, it has, apparently, been out for some months in other formats, because Bryson has antiquated publishers. I was one of the people who clicked on (perhaps multiple times) the tell the publisher you want to read this on Kindle link for "Notes." So wake up, publishers -- perhaps you would have had more serious fans reviewing the book sooner if you had released it at the same time for ebooks as you did for dead tree books. Anyway. As I read this, I became aware in a way that I had not while reading "Notes," that it is possible that the Thereoux of his time and the Bryson of "Little Dribbling" were equally crotchety old men, both finding reasons to be irritated by incompetent and/or stupid people they met along their travels. But even if they were, Thereoux is either one of the most humorless writers of all time, or imbued with such a dry sarcasm that I -- who feel myself to have a pretty high sarcasm meter -- picked up on absolutely none of it. Also, while Bryson seems to have met with an equal mix of incompetent/stupid people, he also met with a reasonable range of coherent/interesting/clever ones, in the course of "Little Dribbling." Also, any increased crochetiness was basically forgiven because this is, hands-down, the book I have laughed out loud reading more than any other, as I tore through it in the course of two days. I travel to Britain every year, so perhaps the jokes and the subtle humor are closer to home for me, but they were absolutely spot-o...