The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America

Bill Bryson (1989)
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THE A5 BOOK REVIEW

One of Bill Bryson’s first travel books bring him back to the United States after living ten years abroad in England, in a search for the small town America of his youth he remembered growing up in Iowa.  He makes two long road trips across the country, one heading east from Des Moines in the fall of 1987 and one heading the opposite direction in the spring of 1988.  He purposely chose to try to experience the real everyday life America on his trip, concentrating on small towns and on taking many roads less traveled, providing the medium for the amusing and perceptive flow of observations and commentary that make Bryson the popular writer he is today.  The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America is touching, as Bryson feels lost in his own country, occasionally depressing in its accuracy, but most of all, a truly funny travelogue. 
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OTHER A5 RECOMMENDED TRAVEL BOOKS - BILL BRYSON
Bill Bryson is one of our top recommended travel writers.  Learn more about Bill Bryson here.

OTHER RELATED RECOMMENDATIONS

Travels with Charley

Those who liked Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent should also read one of our top recommendations, John Steinbeck's memoir on his 1960 road trip across the country, Travels With Charley.  Like Bryson, he also wanted to see what America was really like, and this memoir provides both a nice view into that time in our country's history and of the writer himself.  Click here to read our review of Travels with Charley.

Blue Highways: A Journey into America

Another great discovering-America travel book is William Least Heat-Moon’s Blue Highways, the story of his road trip around the United States along smaller out-of-the-way roads and through little towns.   The book is described by some as a masterpiece of American travel writing.  Click here to read our review of Blue Highways: A Journey Into America.

GREAT QUOTES FROM THE LOST CONTINENT: TRAVELS IN SMALL TOWN AMERICA

“[Traveling] makes you realize what an immeasurably nice place much of America could be if only people possessed the same instinct for preservation as they do in Europe. You would think the millions of people who come to Williamsburg every year would say to each other, "Gosh, Bobbi, this place is beautiful. Let's go home to Smellville and plant lots of trees and preserve all the fine old buildings." But in fact that never occurs to them. They just go back and build more parking lots and Pizza Huts.”

“I was heading to Nebraska. Now there's a sentence you don't want to say too often if you can possibly help it.” 

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