The Lost Continent

<p>&#145;I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to&#146;<br><br>And as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough he left. Des Moines couldn&#146;t hold him but it did lure him back. After ten years in England he returned to the land of his youth and drove almost 14000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam the kind of trim and sunny place where the films of his youth were set. Instead his search led him to Anywhere USA; a lookalike strip of gas stations motels and hamburger outlets populated by lookalike people with a penchant for synthetic fibres. He discovered a continent that was doubly lost; lost to itself because blighted by greed pollution mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a stranger in his own land.<br><br>Bryson&#146;s acclaimed first success <i>The Lost Continent</i> is a classic of travel literature &#150; hilariously stomach-achingly funny yet tinged with heartache &#150; and the book that first staked Bill Bryson&#146;s claim as the most beloved writer of his generation.</p>