Book #24: I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson

This is another re-read. I brought it with me on our trip to NYC this weekend to read on the plane, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's the perfect vacation book--each chapter is a separate, short essay, so it's easy to get through and a quick read. The book is a compilation of a column he wrote for a local paper in the late 90's.

All I need to say about this book is that Bill Bryson really is hilarious. I want to write memoirs just like him. There are always parts that make me laugh out loud whenever I read his books, and this one is especially funny. Here's the part that made me giggle for about ten minutes straight on the plane while Tommy looked concerned at my lack of control:

(While complaining about his computer): "Never mind that many of these keys duplicate the functions of other keys, while others apparently do nothing at all (my favorite in this respect is one marked "Pause," which when pressed does absolutely nothing, raising the interesting metaphysical question of whether it is therefore doing its job), or that several keys are arrayed in slightly imbecilic places. The delete key, for instances, is right beside the overprint key so that often I discover, with a trill of gay laughter, that my most recent thoughts have been devouring, PacMan-like, everything I had previously written."

So excellent, and so true! (I've always wondered what the Pause button is for, haha.)