The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir | Bill Bryson

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir | Bill Bryson | Absolutely hilarious and interesting read for young and old

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The Life and Times...

	The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir Bill Bryson Broadway, 2007 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 50 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

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 1950s

Bill Bryson was born in the middle of the American century?1951?in the middle of the United States?Des Moines, Iowa?in the middle of the largest generation in American history?the baby boomers. As one of the best and funniest writers alive, he is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24-carat memoir gold. Like millions of his generational peers, Bill Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero. In his case, he ran around his house and neighborhood with an old football jersey with a thunderbolt on it and a towel about his neck that served as his cape, leaping tall buildings in a single bound and vanquishing awful evildoers (and morons)?in his head?as "The Thunderbolt Kid."

Using this persona as a springboard, Bill Bryson re-creates the life of his family and his native city in the 1950s in all its transcendent normality?a life at once completely familiar to us all and as far away and unreachable as another galaxy. It was, he reminds us, a happy time, when automobiles and televisions and appliances (not to mention nuclear weapons) grew larger and more numerous with each passing year, and DDT, cigarettes, and the fallout from atmospheric testing were considered harmless or even good for you. He brings us into the life of his loving but eccentric family, including affectionate portraits of his father, a gifted sportswriter for the local paper and dedicated practitioner of isometric exercises, and OF his mother, whose job as the home furnishing editor for the same paper left her little time for practicing the domestic arts at home. The many readers of Bill Bryson?s earlier classic, A Walk in the Woods, will greet the reappearance in these pages of the immortal Stephen Katz, seen hijacking literally boxcar loads of beer. He is joined in the Bryson gallery of immortal characters by the demonically clever Willoughby brothers, who apply their scientific skills and can-do attitude to gleefully destructive ends.

Warm and laugh-out-loud funny, and full of his inimitable, pitch-perfect observations, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is as wondrous a book as Bill Bryson has ever written. It will enchant anyone who has ever been young.

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The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir

A laugh out loud look at a boy growing up in Iowa in the 1950s. A wonderful nostalgic look at life through a boy's eyes. For anyone who grew up in the fifties this is the ticket for a trip down memory lane. This is a wonderful get well gift as laughter aids in healing and relieving pain. I challenge anyone to read this and not laugh out loud. This is Bill Bryson at his best and who could ask for more.

Absolutely hilarious and interesting read for young and old

Too funny! I was born in the 60's, but this book has given me a thorough understanding of life in the 50's - all the innocence and fun. So interesting, but mainly, laugh out loud funny! Fun for young adults and older folks, this book will appeal to any age who wants at least a couple of laughs PER PAGE! Definitely worth reading, in fact, I have ordered his other books as a result. Impressive writer.

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Des Moines' own local hero in defense of a boy's right to be dirty

Approximately normal, but at times excessively disgusting, Bryson gives us the frog's perspective to Halberstam's magnificent bird's eye view of the Fifties.
Bryson's specific kind of humour, the exaggeration to absurdity of nearly everything, can be very funny, but also trying. Boys will be boys, so they do odd things, but when you exaggerate them, they go a bit out of their normal frame. Some of his stories are plain yukki. (eating buttered popcorn in a cinema while peeling something soft away from underneath the chair? crawling underneath the toilet partitions to lock all doors from the inside? watching the man with the hole in his throat while he eats and speaks? etc ad nauseam, literally)
So the fun is there but not always.
Apart from that, my main reason to read the book is the fact that Bryson grew up with a dad who was a sports reporter, and in Bryson's surely not exaggerated recollection the greatest American baseball reporter ever. Now that I have resigned from my less than promising career as a reviewer at Amazon.de to focus fully on Amazon.com, I realized that I have no clue why you guys like baseball so much.
After Bryson, I still don't have a clue, but I learned one thing: it must help to have grown up with it. I guess I will never make it even to the outer circles of the half-initiated.

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Bryson brings his B-game

Funny, but overall not as entertaining as Bryson's other works like A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail or I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away.

It's hard for me to put my finger on it -- it's definitely still a Bryson book and has his signature style. But it reminds me of when a great baseball player is in a hitting slump -- you know it's still him when he walks to the plate, but the end result just isn't as impressive.

If you're a Bryson devotee, you'll probably read the book anyway. Just know in advance that he isn't bringing his A-game. If you're new to Bryson, go ahead and read "The Thunderbolt Kid" -- Bryson bringing his B-game is still better than most other writers bringing their A-game. And once you read one Bryson book, you'll find you just can't stop.

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