The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
by Bill Bryson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Bill BrysonReader: Bill Bryson
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Published: 2006-10-17
ISBN: 0739315234
Publisher: Random House Audio
Book Reviews of The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
Book Review: A lost world revisited
Summary: 5 Stars
As always, Bryson is informative (the Thunderbolt Kid is really an excellent history of the 1950s and '60s in the U.S.) and wonderfully amusing (as in laugh out loud).
He's also an excellent narrator of this audio book.
Just one caveat. While the book is funny and interesting throughout, from my vantage point, at least, little about Bryson as a teenager was appealing: he essentially opted out of high school life, chose to spend minimal time with his family, was a petty thief, and starting at age 14 smoked like a chimney and drank a lot of alcohol. If you can't tolerate hearing about a kid like that, don't get this book.
Summary of The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
BONUS FEATURE: Exclusive interview with the author.From one of the most beloved and bestselling authors in the English language, a vivid, nostalgic and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the middle of the United States in the middle of the last century. A book that delivers on the promise that it is ?laugh-out-loud funny.?
Some say that the first hints that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came from 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 this hilarious new memoir, he travels back to explore the kid he once was and the weird and wonderful world of 1950s America. He modestly claims that this is a book about not very much: about being small and getting much larger slowly. But for the rest of us, it is a laugh-out-loud book that will speak volumes ? especially to anyone who has ever been young.
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