April 28, 1997
Wrote PW: "Bryson shares what he loves best about the idiosyncrasies of everyday English life in this immensely entertaining travel memoir."
November 24, 2008
Dwight and Tracey Wilson have two children and a committed marriage, until Dwight is offered a major promotion that will take him from Florida to Maryland and Tracey is unwilling to move. Dwight takes up with co-worker. Alicia Dixon at his new job, and when she gets pregnant, he marries her, not knowing that his divorce was never finalized. Alicia's excitement (“I had snagged an endangered species: a successful black man who loved me”) is short-lived when Tracey arrives to reclaim Dwight. Wanting to do the right thing for both women and all his children, Dwight, Tracey and Alicia embark on an unconventional solution that forces them all together. Veteran authors Dow and Poole team up to tell this complicated story, but this tale of a weak man who can't or won't make a choice is less than compelling. Women will leave this book wondering how Dwight was able to land one of these women, let alone two, and will be mystified at what exactly the women are fighting so hard to keep.
April 29, 1996
Before his return to the U.S. after a 20-year residence in England, journalist Bryson (Made in America) embarked on a farewell tour of his adopted homeland. His trenchant, witty and detailed observations of life in a variety of towns and villages will delight Anglophiles. Traveling only on public transportation and hiking whenever possible, Bryson wandered along the coast through Bournemouth and neighboring villages that reinforced his image of Britons as a people who rarely complain and are delighted by such small pleasures as a good tea. In Liverpool, the author's favorite English city, he visited the Merseyside Maritime Museum to experience its past as a great port. Interweaving descriptions of landscapes and everyday encounters with shopkeepers, pub customers and fellow travelers, Bryson shares what he loves best about the idiosyncrasies of everyday English life in this immensely entertaining travel memoir. Author tour.