An Excellent Book to Read While Traveling!
Bryson is always so knowledgeable that it's hard to pick the most informative anecdote and so hilarious that it's impossible to pick the funniest. The Road to Little Dribbling is no exception.
That being said, this passage is a favorite, not necessarily for wisdom or humor, but more for it's poetic loveliness. If there's one thing Bryson can do, it is to wax lyrical in praise of Britain, land that he loves:
"This is the most extraordinary thing about Britain. It wants to be a garden. Flowers bloom in the unlikeliest places -- on railway sidings and waste grounds where there is nothing beneath them but rubble and grit. You even see clumps of flowery life growing on the sides of abandoned warehouses and old viaducts. If all the humans in the UK vanished tomorrow, Britain would still be in flower. This is in complete contrast to American, where nature is wild and raw. You need flamethrowers to keep the weeds in check where I come from [Iowa]. Here is is just miles of accidental loveliness. It is really quite splendid." (72)
from
The Road to Little Dribbling:
Adventures of an American in Britain
