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Notes from a Big Country was the first Bill Bryson book I read, and remains one of my favourite books to this day. I read most of it on a bus down the west coast of the US, and it was appropriate in all the right ways: it was about the US, it was funny in a way I liked (and still like) very much, and it consists of short essays which are bite-sized, quick to read, and easy to share with others sitting on the same bus. I laughed out loud several times by this book, the “how to calculate your taxes” essay being one of my favourites, and it’s a great book to just pick up and read a bit of now and then.
I think I read Notes from a Small Island pretty soon after reading Neither Here not There, so the two books kind of blend into one in my recollection of them. I did read this book before having lived in the UK, and I think it would be very interesting to re-read it today, and see if having more of a familiarity with the country would make me read the book in a bit of a new light.
Oedipus I did really like. I recall reading two translations pretty much in parallel – one which was apparently pretty much word-for-word faithful to the original, and this one. This one, which I imagine is less faithful to the language of the original, but more accurately conveys the spirit of it, was much more enjoyable by far. I enjoyed it a lot as a story, and remember really appreciating the soliloquies, with some fascination over how long ago it was actually written, and how something written that long ago can still be at all relevant today.
I’m confused at seeing myself having given this three stars, as I, from memory, am pretty sure I liked it enough for it to warrant a four-star rating. If anything I think I found it to me too short, but Of Mice and Men is a classic that I’m very glad to have read. The last scene especially was very impactful, and I still remember the move in my head that played out at the end of this book.
As I like the musical Cats, I picked up this book to check out the source material. They’re essentially funny, feel-good poems about cats. I can imagine cat-owners might get a little more from these poems than I did, but they were still entertaining.