I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away

Bill Bryson, together with his English wife and four kids, just returned to the United States after twenty years spent living in Britain. He had heard that about three million Americans thought they had been abducted by aliens; as he subsequently said, "it was clear my people needed me". They awoke to find a transformed America complete with microwave breakfasts, 24-hour dental floss hotlines, and the unwavering belief that ice is a need rather than a luxury.

I'm a Stranger Here Myself, which has Bryson's trademark witty observations, describes his sometimes unsettling return to his birthplace. As a consequence, the book is full of hilarious vignettes of a guy trying to go back to know his own country, but it's also a long, if often confused, love letter to the place he's spent the last twenty years leaving.