Bill Bryson's first travel book, The Lost Continent, was unanimously acclaimed a
s one of the funniest books in years. In Neither Here nor There he brings his un
ique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backback, keeps a tig
ht hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on th
e continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia. Fluent in, oh, at least one langua
ge, he retraces his travels as a student twenty years before.
Whether braving
the homicidal motorists of Paris, being robbed by gypsies in Florence, attempti
ng not to order tripe and eyeballs in a German restaurant or window-shopping in
the sex shops of the Reeperbahn, Bryson takes in the sights, dissects the cultur
e and illuminates each place and person with his hilariously caustic observation
s. He even goes to Liechtenstein.
