Â鶹´«Ã½

US-BORN Bill Bryson has now spent more than half his life living in England, everywhere from Kirkby Malham in North Yorkshire to Wramplingham in Norfolk.

That non-standard relationship to the UK gave him the edge to write Notes from a Small Island, a wry account of getting to grips with Britain’s strange customs. The book made him a household name in the late 1990s. Other books followed, all using the same formula: Bryson pokes fun at himself while discovering some new and interesting place.

Then, in 2003, a surprise: he published…