AfteR nearly two decades in England, the humorous Mr Bryson returns en famille to his US homeland, where, from an old New England house, he turns his bemused eye on all things American, such as the "wondrous unfillable vastness" of his basement, the "curiously astounding notion" that ice is not a luxury item, and the "giddying abundance" of absolutely everything. These are short, funny, pointed essays on everything from catalogues and junk food to bureaucracy and dumbing down. Bryson observes the traditional conventions of the genre - the author presented as inadequate klutz, the clever coda, the cleverer wife, the pseudo-pompous insertion ("Allow me to explain"), but the collection fizzes with good humour in the best sense of the term, and Bryson's obvious affection for life in America does not blind him to its multiple daily irritations and drawbacks.