The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid

by Bill Bryson
Subject: Memoirs
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The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid, Bill Bryson

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

Available Formats

  • Paperback
    $19.95 RRP
    ISBN: 9780552772549
    Published: 01/08/2007
    Imprint: Black Swan
    Extent: 416 pages
  • Hardback
    $52.95 RRP
    ISBN: 9780385608268
    Published: 01/09/2006
    Imprint: Doubleday
    Extent: 320 pages
  • EBook
    CHECK RETAILER PRICE
    ISBN: 9781409095781
    Published: 01/05/2010
    Imprint: Transworld Digital
    Extent: 416 pages
  • CD
    $35.00 RRP
    ISBN: 9780552153652
    Published: 01/09/2006
    Imprint: Corgi Audio
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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.

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Top Ten Bestsellers of 2011 0 comments

As the year is drawing to a close, it's only right that we look back on some of the most memorable books of the year. Here is a list Top Ten of bestselling books of 2011. Does your favourite appear on the list?   All           Book Author 1 INHERITANCE...

Jun 30

The word is the word is the word.

by Brandon VanOver on 30 June 2010

The word is the word is the word. 0 comments

Clues to the more mysterious things in life are often lying around us, common as dust bunnies, as numerous as mould spores. My ten-month-old daughter, Greta, likes to have a poke around, a casual survey of our unit kingdom. More often than not I see size-one feet disappearing around a corner, bound for a bout with the CD tower, a lurch towards a power cord, a cuddle with this really creepy doll my...

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"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

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

"PRAISE FOR BILL BRYSON:
'Hugely funny (not snigger-snigger funny, but great-big-belly-laugh-till-you-cry funny)" - Daily Telegraph

"Not only hilarious but also insightful and informative" - Independent on Sunday

"Seriously funny" - Sunday Times

"Hilarious . . . not your typical travel writer" - Sunday Telegraph

"Funny, wise, learned and compulsive" - GQ

"Not a book that should be read in public, for fear of emitting loud snorts" - The Times

"Praise for THUNDERBOLT:
* '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

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