I'm a Stranger Here Myself

After living in Britain for two decades, Bill Bryson recently moved back to the United States with his English wife and four children (he had read somewhere that nearly 3 million Americans believed they had been abducted by aliens--as he later put it, "it was clear my people needed me"). They were greeted by a new and improved America that boasts microwave pancakes, twenty-four-hour dental-floss hotlines, and the staunch conviction that ice is not a luxury item.

Delivering the brilliant comic musings that are a Bryson hallmark, I'm a Stranger Here Myself recounts his sometimes disconcerting reunion with the land of his birth. The result is a book filled with hysterical scenes of one man's attempt to reacquaint himself with his own country, but it is also an extended if at times bemused love letter to the homeland he has returned to after twenty years away.

比爾·布萊森，世界知名的非虛構作家，1951年出生於美國艾奧瓦州，曾任職於倫敦《泰晤士報》與《獨立報》，同時也為《紐約時報》、《國家地理雜誌》等刊物撰文。作品主要包括旅遊類隨筆、幽默獨特的科普作品——比如《萬物簡史》、《母語》等等，橫跨多種領域，皆為非學院派的幽默之作。他的作品詼諧嘲謔的風格堪稱一絕、整體上舉重若輕，能讓普通讀者產生很強的認同感，不失為雅俗共賞的典範，深受讀者喜愛，也獲得很高的評價，每部作品均高踞美、英、加暢銷排行榜前茅。

比爾·布萊森之所以能在二十世紀的旅遊文學中佔據一席之地，併成為目前世界公認的最有趣的旅遊文學作家，是因為他擅長用不同的眼光來看待他所遊歷的世界，他真切地捕捉到了一個旅人的內心感受。自然地理、生活情趣、社會時態，布萊森信手拈來無不奇趣，使普通讀者產生很強的認同感。他的尖刻加上他的博學，讓他的文字充滿了智慧、機敏和幽默。作為在英國生活了二十多年的美國人，他的作品又兼具了開朗風趣、絕不怕粗俗的美式調侃和冷峻犀利、一針見血的英式嘲諷。