The Road to Little Dribbling

More Notes From a Small Island

By: Bill Bryson

Narrated by: Nathan Osgood

Twenty years ago Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to celebrate the green and kindly island that had become his adopted country. The hilarious book that resulted, Notes from a Small Island, was taken to the nation’s heart and became the best-selling travel book ever and was voted in a BBC poll the book that best represents Britain.

Now, to mark the 20th anniversary of that modern classic, Bryson makes a brand-new journey around Britain to see what has changed. Following (but not too closely) a route he dubs the Bryson Line, from Bognor Regis to Cape Wrath, by way of places that many people never get to at all, Bryson sets out to rediscover the wondrously beautiful, magnificently eccentric, endearingly unique country that he thought he knew but doesn’t altogether recognize any more.

Yet, despite Britain’s occasional failings and more or less eternal bewilderments, Bill Bryson is still pleased to call our rainy island home. And not just because of the cream teas, a noble history, and an extra day off at Christmas.

Once again, with his matchless homing instinct for the funniest and quirkiest, his unerring eye for the idiotic, the endearing, the ridiculous and the scandalous, Bryson gives us an acute and perceptive insight into all that is best and worst about Britain today.

Download includes accompanying PDF map of the Bryson Line. Music written and performed by Richard Digance, inspired by The Road to Little Dribbling.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2015 Bill Bryson (P)2015 Recording and music (p) Transworld Audiobooks

The narrator is brilliant. Loved it!

I am a Bryson fan girl so of course I loved the book but the narrator, Nathan Osgood, made it so much better! I heard and re-heard some parts because they were so impeccable.

Love Bill Bryson!

I have read or listened to almost every Bill Bryson book written. (and I will read The Body: A Guide For Occupants soon) I particularly enjoy his audiobbooks - he brings them to life as no other narrator could.

Loved the book

Very entertaining and informative. Bill Bryson has the nack of saying things without being too crude. Narrator was excellent.

Vintage Bill Bryson!

For those who thought Notes from a Small Island was theor favorite Bryson, you should know he has done a sequel which is even better. Meet the old man Bryson. More caustic wit which couldn't have mature better

Sarcasm and base humour.

This is the first time ever, that Mr Bryson has disappointed me. Sure the book is an easy read/listen. I found his views rather distasteful at times. Using the word 'vegetable' when referring to a person he'd like to assault was rather poor. His views of the changing culture in Britain were more sarcasm than humour. Far too many sentences related to his behaviour and attitude towards others than necessary. Base and rather vulgar language was unnecessary. After 19 chapters I gave up. About to re-listen to a Walk in the Woods to renew my faith.

Grave Disappointment

What would have made The Road to Little Dribbling better?

A strong infusion of Bryson's wit and eye for oddity -- from 15 years back.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

Certainly - anything by Bryson is worth looking at.

Any additional comments?

I bow to nobody in my admiration for Bryson. I've read all his books as they came out and there are comic scenes in many of them that made me laugh out loud - a rare thing. To my mind, his 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' is a book I'd like to see put in the hands of every intelligent 14 year old who is interested in how the world got to be the way it is and humans' place in it. Bryson has, or had, a huge gift for making a popular synthesis of history and science. This book is serious disappointment. The witty persona he has cultivated through his career seems to be dissolving in all round grouchiness and moaning about Britain, his adopted homeland. His constant bitching about prices of sandwiches etc does not amuse, coming from someone who must (deservedly) be a rich man. Similarly, his pose of ingenuousness, attractive in earlier books, rings hollow here. Among other things, I simply don't believe Bryson has never heard of the painter Leighton, as he claims! Large chunks of the book, especially the biographical vignettes, have the air of being paraphrased from Wikipedia. Also his regular laments about not being able to recall things that happened 2 weeks ago are disconcerting. I suppose Bryson has reached the stage where his publishers are happy to slap anything he writes between covers and push it out. What a shame. The narrator, though, does a very sound job in the circumstances.

In search of the adjective in the sentence

What disappointed you about The Road to Little Dribbling?

Really annoying read.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Chosen a reader who got the style.

How could the performance have been better?

This reader thought he was reading a thriller not a laconic, witty travelogue. It sounded as though he had been handed the book 30 secs before the read - the sentences took him by surprise or, maybe, he just has no idea of the structure of a sentence. So often the emphasis would be on the noun rather than the adjective - greenBELT, roundABOUT. The only saving grace was that he had swotted up on how to pronounce the place names correctly. But the style of the book was, clearly, a complete mystery to him.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Road to Little Dribbling?

No editing, just a producer.

Any additional comments?

Has Bill Bryson heard this audio book?