The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid - Hardcover

Bryson, Bill

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385608268 ISBN 13: 9780385608268

Publisher: Doubleday, 2006

Synopsis

Some say that the first hint that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came when his mother sent him to school in lime-green Capri pants. Others think it all started with his discovery, at the age of six, of a woollen jersey of rare fineness. Across the moth-holed chest was a golden thunderbolt. It may have looked like an old college football sweater, but young Bryson knew better. It was obviously the Sacred Jersey of Zap, and proved that he had been placed with this innocuous family in the middle of America to fly, become invisible, shoot guns out of people's hands from a distance, and wear his underpants over his jeans in the manner of Superman.

Bill Bryson's first travel book opened with the immortal line, 'I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.' In his deeply funny new memoir, he travels back in time to explore the ordinary kid he once was, and the curious world of 1950s America. It was a happy time, when almost everything was good for you, including DDT, cigarettes and nuclear fallout. This is a book about growing up in a specific time and place. But in Bryson's hands, it becomes everyone's story, one that will speak volumes - especially to anyone who has ever been young.

About this title

Review

"A wittily incisive book about innocence, and its limits, but in no sense an innocent book...Like Alan Bennett, another ironist posing as a sentimentalist, Bryson can play the teddy-bear and then deliver a sudden, grizzly-style swipe...might tell us as much about the oddities of the American way as a dozen think-tanks." (Boyd Tonkin Independent)

"Always witty and sometimes hilarious...wonderfully funny and touching." (Literary Review)

"A funny, effortlessly readable, quietly enchanted memoir...Bryson also provides a quirky social history of America...he always manages to slam on the brakes with a good joke just when things might get sentimental." (Daily Mail)

"Takes us on yet another amiable ramble through terrain viewed with his characteristic mixture of bemused wit, acerbic astonishment and sweet benevolence...we come closest to the real Bryson in this, his first true memoir...encompasses so much of human experience that you want to smile and sob at once...Bryson's evocation of an era is near perfect: tender, hilarious and true." (The Times)

"He can capture the flavour of the past with the lightest of touches...marvellous set pieces...As a chronicler of the foibles and absurdities of daily life, Bryson has few peers." (Sunday Telegraph)

Book Description

Bill Bryson on his most personal journey yet: into his own childhood in America's Mid-West.

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0385608268
• ISBN 13: 9780385608268
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320