If Only They Didn't Speak English

If Only They Didn't Speak English - Jon Sopel ***

Teamed up with Emily Maitlis, John Sopel was for several years host of by far the best of the BBC political podcasts, Americast - most tend to be painfully worthy, including Americast post Sopel and Maitlis. The pair left to set up their own Newsagents podcast, but this has been uninspiring - it has only been since they've done a US spinoff that the pair have once again recaptured their magic.

One of there reasons I read this book from 2018 was my enjoyment of the engaging approach taken in the podcast - the other was the comment by Bill Bryson on the front, which made me think this would be like of one of Bryson's books - wry humour, underlining the differences between the US and the UK. In reality, If Only They Didn't Speak English is very different.

I'm glad I read it, but it was significantly harder going than I expected. Sopel's writing style has none of the verve of his podcasting persona - this is a serious book, examining a range of ways that American culture differs from British, whether it be attitudes to race, patriotism or guns. Although there are plenty of anecdotes from Sopel's time as BBC correspondent in the US, there is a surprising amount of historical material, some from the early days of the country and more from the first half of the twentieth century. Although the subtitle tells us these are 'notes from Trump's America' (the first time around), there's a lot about Obama's America too, as Sopel contrasts the then new and the previous president and their actions.

It's a shame Sopel didn't bring in more of his personal experience and cut back on the historical context a bit: the way the book is written feels like he was trying to make this more of a weighty tome than it really is. It would also have helped if the material had been broken up more - the 364 pages are split into ten chapters which have no subheadings or section breaks. This makes reading it quite heavy going. However, it was genuinely interesting to take in a view from the first year of Trump's first presidency as we are about to start his next one.

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