Rating: 4 out of 5
I’ve enjoyed Mr Bryson for many years now though the majority of his travel works are very old. This is similar, the radio broadcasts mostly dating to the 1990’s. Some of them are broad in nature: Mr Bryson in the UK and his thoughts about the country and its people, expressed with less sarcasm than in the books.
The rest is made up of series on the English language and its history. This is a fascinating subject and being able to hear is much better than simply read it. These episodes slowly built up from 16th and 17th century language into the present, including regional dialects. The topic is quite well covered in the author’s own book on the subject, but it was nonetheless very interesting to go through the subject again.
Overall, there’s nothing completely new to prior fans of Mr Bryson in this, but it’s also nice to go back and remind oneself of those prior works.
