Penguin Random House, London 2015

This book is meant as a 40-years-after sequel to „Notes from a small Island“, but it also means, that its author is 40 years older, 63 in 2015, to be exact. And it shows. Bryson still has his pleasant small- talk-style of writing, but he keeps complaining, that all these small places in Britain used to be so much nicer 40 years ago, „used to“ being his favourite phrase. And Bryson´s  friendly humour has turned into a mostly sad song of „the times we had“. Although this reader here is somewhat older than Bryson, she cannot share his slightly senile attitude.
The reading process came to an abrupt end, when Bryson describes in loving detail his visit to the Derwent Reservoir, the place where the British developped their dam-blasting bombs, which were intended to blow up dams in Germany during WWII. Although only once „successful“ and killing 1,700 people, a lot of them allied prisoners of war, Bryson likes this bomb-building effort a lot. Too much for this reader´s taste!