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A Memoir
by Bill Bryson
Book Reviewed by: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".
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 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 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.
Part memoir, part social history, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is a hoot. Bryson describes his idyllic childhood growing up in the middle of the USA, in the middle of the last century, in the middle of the baby boom years - a time of unprecedented prosperity for the country as a whole, quite different to the depression-era experiences of the previous generation; but it's not all rose-tinted glasses - the threat of nuclear war, Joe McCarthy, and America flexing its muscles overseas all come into the picture...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
While many in the USA experienced an unprecedented economic boom in the
1950s, what was happening elsewhere?
Europe: The division of Europe into West and East persisted.
The foundations for the European Community were laid. Rationing continued
in some Western countries (e.g. in Britain up until 1953), but post-war
reconstruction was booming, due to the Marshall Plan (a four year plan
instigated in 1947 during which about $13 billion of economic and technical
assistance was given by the USA to certain European countries. At
the end of the four years, the economies of every participating country except
Germany had exceeded their pre-war levels.
The Middle East: The increasing importance of oil gave an economic boost
...
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If you liked The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, try these:
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Published 2010
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author— "an immensely gifted writer and a magical prose stylist" (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times)—offers his first major work of nonfiction, an autobiographical narrative as inventive, beautiful, and powerful as his acclaimed, award-winning fiction.
by Gail Caldwell
Published 2007
A memoir of culture and history – of fathers and daughters, of two world wars and the passionate rebellions of the sixties. It is also about the mythology of place and the evolution of a sensibility: and about how literature can shape and even anticipate a life.
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