The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid
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  • Published: 4 January 2016
  • ISBN: 9781784161811
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $24.99
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The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid

Travels Through my Childhood

Formats & editions
Paperback
4 Jan 2016
EBook
1 May 2010
Audiobook
4 Sep 2006
Audio CD
1 Sep 2006
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Bill Bryson on his most personal journey yet: into his own childhood in America's Mid-West.

From one of our most beloved and bestselling authors, a vivid, nostalgic, and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the 1950s.Born in 1951 in the middle of the United States, Des Moines, Iowa, Bill Bryson is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24 carat memoir gold. Like millions of his generation, Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero. In his case, he ran around the house wearing a jersey with a thunderbolt on it and a towel round his neck that served as his cape, leaping tall buildings in a single bound and vanquishing evildoers (in his head) as The Thunderbolt Kid.
Using his childhood fantasy life as a springboard, Bill Bryson recreates the life of his family in the 1950s in all its transcendent normality. In a period that saw the inexorable rise of television, the opening of Disneyland, the testing of the atomic bomb, and the explosion of choice in everything from food to cars, Bill Bryson's days followed in reassuringly cosy succession, enlivened by modest triumphs and disasters.
Warm and laugh-out-loud funny, The Rise and Fall of the Thunderbolt Kid is a modern classic, full of Bill Bryson's inimitable, pitch-perfect observations.
  • Published: 4 January 2016
  • ISBN: 9781784161811
  • Imprint: Black Swan
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $24.99
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. His bestselling books include The Road to Little Dribbling, Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods, One Summer and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. In a national poll, Notes from a Small Island was voted the book that best represents Britain. His acclaimed work of popular science, A Short History of Nearly Everything, won the Aventis Prize and the Descartes Prize, and was the biggest selling non-fiction book of its decade in the UK. His new book The Body: A Guide for Occupants is an extraordinary exploration of the human body which will have you marvelling at the form you occupy.
Bill Bryson was Chancellor of Durham University 2005–2011. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society. He lives in England.

portrait photo of Bill Bryson

Also by Bill Bryson

A Short History of Nearly Everything
The Body
A Really Short History of Words
A Really Short Journey Through the Body
The Body Illustrated
The Bill Bryson Radio Collection
The Road to Little Dribbling
See all

Praise for The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid

Not only hilarious but also insightful and informative

Independent on Sunday

Seriously funny

The Sunday Times

Hilarious... not your typical travel writer

Sunday Telegraph

Funny, wise, learned and compulsive

GQ

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

Outlandishly and improbably entertaining... inevitably [I] would be reduced to body-racking, tear-inducing, de-couching laughter

The New York Times

Characteristic mixture of bemused wit, acerbic astonishment and sweet benevolence... Evocation of an era is near perfect: tender, hilarious and true

The Times
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