The Lost Continent

I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn t hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England, he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of trim and sunny place where the films of his youth were set. Instead, his search led him to Anywhere, USA; a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by lookalike people with a penchant for synthetic fibres. He discovered a continent that was doubly lost; lost to itself because blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a stranger in his own land.Bryson s acclaimed first success, The Lost Continent is a classic of travel literature hilariously, stomach-achingly, funny, yet tinged with heartache and the book that first staked Bill Bryson s claim as the most beloved writer of his generation.