Stephen Fry in America [Hardcover]

'A fascinating look at one of the world's most complex and confusing countries, this is a story told with the wit and warmth we expect from Fry.' Stoke on Trent Sentinel

‘A very funny take on life across the pond.’
BAA Emporium

• Lobster fishing in Maine.
• Electioneering with Mitt Romney for the New Hampshire primaries.
• Went to a real witch’s ball at Salem, Massachusetts, on Halloween.
• Sailed an Admiral Cup winning yacht in Rhode Island.
• Went down into a nuclear submarine in Connecticut.
• Mixed my own Ben and Jerry’s flavour in Vermont.
• Went deer hunting in upstate New York.
• Hung out with ancient toothless wise guys from the old days in the borough of Queen’s, New York; drove Sting down Broadway.
• Learned to deal Blackjack in the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City New Jersey
• Zoomed round Washington DC in a Segway.
• Went to the Veteran’s Day ceremony in Arlington, Virginia with VP Dick Cheney.
• Went down a coal mine in West Virginia.
• Sold a thoroughbred yearling and got insanely ratted in a bourbon distillery in Kentucky.
• Picked with Bluegrass hillbillies and found myself in a garden full of dead bodies in Tennessee. Was appointed an official duckmaster in Memphis, an honour I share with Kevin Bacon and Oprah Winfrey.
• Went ballooning over the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina.
• Enjoyed Thanksgiving in a grand plantation house in Georgia.
• Went to a gay bar in Georgia and watched a drag act ... "Honey, there’s more of us than you’d believe."
• Watched a college football game in Alabama that was bigger than the FA Cup final. 100,000 in the stadium, two hundred thousand crowded outside it.
• Sat in court in Montgomery as families pleaded for their children’s parole.
• Swam with dolphins and danced with snowbirds in Florida.
• Marched with the Zulus on Mardi Gras in New Orleans, was blessed at a voodoo ceremony (or possibly cursed). Witnessed the horrors of Hurricane Katrina in the Lower Ninth Ward.
• Went oystering down in the gulf of Mexico and farmed with murderers and lifers at the Angola state penitentiary in the rest of Louisiana.
• Canoed along the Mississippi in Arkansas.
• Sat and talked about the blues with Morgan Freeman in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
• Watched the girls of Clarksdale High lose a basketball match.
• Hung out in the ice and snow amongst the homeless in St Louis, Missouri.
• Had my brain examined by a Maharishi psychologist at the Maharishi University in Iowa. Went nuts trying to find alcohol in Vedic City, Iowa, a city founded by followers of the Maharishi.
• Rode with the fire brigade in Elkhart, Indiana. Looked a dick in the uniform. Breathing apparatus got stuck on me.
• Rode a Model T-Ford around Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village, Michigan.
• Discovered the South Side of Chicago with blues legend Buddy Guy.
• Cast and buffed and dipped and polished a genuine Oscar at the factory where they are made in Chicago.
• Improved with the Second City revue.
• Milked sheep in Wisconsin and was pulled in an Amish sled.
• Went ice-fishing in Minnesota and caught a fish.
• Strode around with Ted Turner on his Montana ranch and inspected his herd of buffalo.
• Helicoptered over the Canadian border with the National Border Patrol.
• Poured water over Idaho to demonstrate the nature of the continental divide.
• Was pulled by huskies in Wyoming.
• Ate German food at a diner in Bismarck, North Dakota.
• Stayed on the Lakota Sioux reservation in South Dakota and drummed with the young braves.
• Went trucking in Nebraska.
• Went down a missile bunker in Kansas.
• To a rodeo in Oklahoma.
• Attended an Indian Pow Pow in Denver and caused an explosion on the slopes at Aspen, Colorado.
• Drove along the Rio Grande with Border Patrol in El Paso, Texas and watched Mexicans trying to smuggle themselves over the border.
• In New Mexico went to Los Alamos where the first Atom bomb was made; ballooned along a canyon and went inside an earth ship.
• Barbecued with the Navajo deep inside Monument Valley and had a Navajo weaving lesson.
• In Nevada played a spy game in Las Vegas and found myself in a legal brothel outside Reno talking to well breasted women.
• Flew in a WW2 B17 bomber from Phoenix to Tucson, Arizona and played a scene in a western in the old Tucson studios. Got shot. Death scene lasted 12 minutes, nearly a Tucson record. Beaten by Deforest Kelley, later Dr McCoy, in a B western.
• Drank wine in California’s Napa Valley, chewed the fat with Jony Ive, designer of the iMac, iPod and iPhone. Shot a .44 magnum in Ukiah, California, guest of the sheriff.
• Raided a marijuana farm in Mendocino County.
• Camped out in a place known to be frequented by Big Foot, the Sasquatch in Grant’s Pass, Oregon.
• Swam with sea otters and seals in Seattle, Washington. Said goodbye to the taxi.
• Went fishing in and looking for bears in Kodiak, Alaska. Went north to the arctic circle and skidooed with some Eskimos.
• Went to an observatory in the tallest mountain in the world in Hawaii. Canoed like in the title sequence of Hawaii 5 O. Flew over lava field and watched new bits of America, five acres a week, being made as the molten lava hit the sea. Swam with sharks, flew a microlite around the islands.

And more, so so so much more you wouldn’t believe.