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| Toscany Memories - Mark Arian |
Which city do Bill Bryson (author) and Mark Arian (Realistic Romantic Artist) and Ronald Reagan (Former Disc Jockey, Actor and US President) have in common?
It just so happens that I came across Mark Arian on Bas van Houwelingen's website Reading and Art this evening. The fact that he was born in Des Moines wasn't his fault.
Any more than it was the fault of Bill Bryson whose dry sense of humour has amused me since I first read The Lost Continent and Neither Here nor There many years ago. I have subsequently read many of his books although there are still some outstanding.
Ronald Reagan on the other hand presumably went to Des Moines of his own volition to work for RadioDJ as a disc jockey.
I think that I decided that I would read every word that Bill Bryson wrote when I read the first line of The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America. "I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to." He went on "When you come from Des Moines you either accept the fact without
question and settle down with a girl called Bobbie and get a job in the
Firestone factory and live there forever and ever or you spend your
adolescence moaning at length about what a dump it is and how you can't
wait to get out and then you settle down with a local girl named Bobbie
and get a job in the Firestone factory and live there forever and ever." He was equally unsparing about the UK in Notes from a Small Country. And it was from Down Under that learned that until 1957 (I think) it was still legal to shoot Aborigines in Australia.
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Ha! Am just reading and enjoying Neither here nor there at the moment! I shall read some more too. Hope you are well.
ReplyDeleteAndrea he has a very dry humour doesn't he? I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. I'm good thanks. I hope you are too.
DeleteWe do learn quite a lot of facts from reading books, and I'm amazed at the amount of new things I learn even from reading fiction, and amazing too at the facts I retain many years afterwards.
ReplyDeleteInteresting titbit and it being legal up to 1957 to shoot an Aborigine in Australia....so sad.
Yes Virginia it sometimes puzzles me why some of the odds and ends stick in our mind and some we forget. The way attitudes have changed in the last 50 years in various countries towards different sectors of society is sometimes very significant indeed.
DeleteLike you Graham, I have read most of Bill Bryson's books. I too love his sense of humour which is more English than American, although he has lived in the UK for a lot of years. I have his latest book on order with our library and am getting it as soon as it is released here in Australia.
ReplyDeleteYes Bill I sometimes wonder if his humour is appreciated in the US.
DeleteI don't think I ever heard of Bryson. Nor Mark Arian.
ReplyDeleteI don't think many people have heard of Mark Arian Monica but you are missing a lot if you've never read any of Bill Bryson's books. I'm sure that will be remedied soon.
DeleteI liked his book "From A Sunburned Country" about Australia, I think it was called another title in the UK.
ReplyDeleteIndeed Kay. It was called Down Under in the UK.
DeleteThis is the first time I hear of Mark Arian. Of Bill Bryson, I have heard, but I don't think I have ever read anything by him. Of Ronald Regan, I am not sure I have heard. There was a guy named Reagan, though, who fits the description.
ReplyDeleteEagle-eyed as always Meike. Yet another oops on my part. I have now remedied the error. Thanks. I think you might like some of Bill Bryson's work.
Delete(Sorry, Graham. I just could not resist. That's the finicky Librarian inside me.)
DeleteI like Bill Bryson too. He almost always makes me smile. (I'm covering myself, in case I don't like one of the few books of his I haven't yet read!) I read the first of his books when I was on vacation, and the minute I finished it, I went back to the bookstore to see how many other titles they had. Needless to say, that first book was definitely not left in the hotel room when we flew home.
ReplyDeleteCarol he has a very diverse set of titles to his credit and he seems to turn his magic with words into them.
DeleteYip. Bryson's a genius. :-)
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely Yvonne.
DeleteI read one Bill Bryson book and I forget what it was. I will have to look for a Bryson book right away. I think he wrote about hiking the Appalachian trail.
ReplyDeleteYes, the British title was A Walk in the Woods (1998). It was as good as the rest of his travel books.
DeleteAs well as travel books Bill Bryson OBE also wrote A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003) which was the first book on science I ever read that made any sense to me. Well worth reading. He also wrote some great works on the English language including his first book - The Penguin Dictionary of Troublesome Words (1984) and Mother Tongue (1990). I have At Home: A Short History of Private Life (2010) waiting to be read on my shelves.
ReplyDeleteI agree CJ that The Short History of Nearly Everything is a superb book and I enjoyed Mother Tongue as well.
DeleteI'm afraid I haven't read any of those! Does that make me uncultured??? I have read far too much of the "Classics" which were forced upon us for 6 years, at the all girls school I attended.
ReplyDeleteI'm unsure of the shooting law but I do know that Aborigines were not considered Australian citizens until 1967... ludicrous!!
Uncultured Liz? Certainly not. You're Australian. I had no idea that Aborigines were not considered citizens until 1967.
DeleteGB, you have a way with words. Your post made me want to laugh and punch someone at the same time. I have heard the Bill Bryson quote before, and though I have never been to Des Moines, I can assure you that small towns across the United States are all just as he describes. As for the Aborigine thing... I'm not sure if facts like that make me feel better about the horrors that my home country has visited on its natives (because at least we might not be overly exceptional in our brutality) or just worse about humanity in general. Either way, as long as there are people like you out there... humans can't be all bad, right?
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