The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson, author of many books including A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail and The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America.
Published in 2007. 270 pages.
Read an excerpt. (Includes several books; scroll down for Thunderbolt Kid)
Praise for The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid:
"Bill Bryson's laugh-out-loud pilgrimage through his Fifties childhood in heartland America is a national treasure. It's full of insights, wit, and wicked adolescent fantasies."
—Tom Brokaw
"Bryson is unparalleled in his ability to cut a culture off at the knees in a way that is so humorous and so affectionate that those being ridiculed are laughing too hard to take offense."
—The Wall Street Journal
"A cross between de Tocqueville and Dave Barry, Bryson writes about…America in a way that's both trenchantly observant and pound-on-the-floor, snort-root-beer-out-of-your-nose funny."
—San Franciso Examiner
"Bryson is…great company…a lumbering, droll, neatnik intellectual who comes off as equal parts Garrison Keillor, Michael Kinsley, and…Dave Barry."
—New York Times Book Review
"Bryson's witty memoir is a celebration of sorts of growing up a half century ago in Des Moines...It celebrates a world before global chains, when ‘community was special and nowhere was like everywhere else.'"
—USA Today
"Bill Bryson is erudite, irreverent, funny, and exuberant, making the temptation to quote endlessly from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid...hard to resist."
—Washington Post Book World
