Main content

Bill Bryson: Notes from a Small Island

Amusing and affectionate portrait of the island nation Bill Bryson proudly calls home.

This month World Book Club discusses Bill Bryson’s hugely acclaimed travelogue Notes from a Small Island with the author and his readers around the world.

After two decades as a resident of the United Kingdom, Bryson took what he thought might be a last affectionate trip around his adoptive country before returning to live in his native America. Notes from a Small Island is the irreverent and hilarious account of this meandering journey through his beloved island nation. From Dover to Downing Street, from Giggleswick to Loch Ness by way of Titsey and Nether Wallop, Bryson rejoices in Britain’s inimitable placenames and much else of more substance besides, his very own State of the Nation address, as it were.

A huge number-one bestseller when it was first published, Notes from a Small Island has become that nation's most loved book about Britain.

(Picture: Bill Bryson. Photo credit: Catherine Williams.)

Available now

49 minutes

Last on

Thu 11 Feb 2021 00:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Sun 7 Feb 2021 04:06GMT
  • Sun 7 Feb 2021 14:06GMT
  • Wed 10 Feb 2021 10:06GMT
  • Thu 11 Feb 2021 00:06GMT

Ten Amazing Interviews

Favourite episodes of World Book Club, featuring Maya Angelou and Henning Mankell.

Crime Fiction

Henning Mankel, Patrica Cornwell, Jo Nesbo: stars of the genre discuss their craft.

Tales from History

From the tulip fields of 17th Century Amsterdam to the trenches of World War One.

Podcast