The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir (Random House Large Print)

About this book

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 peoples hands from a distance and wear his underpants over his jeans in the manner of Superman. Bill Brysons 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.