000			03089cam a2200241 a 4500
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008			130407s2006 nyua b 000 0aeng
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050	0	0	_aG154.5.B79 _bA3 2006
082	0	0	_a910.4 BRY
100	1		_aBryson, Bill, 1951-
245	1	4	_aThe life and times of the thunderbolt kid _b: a memoir _c/ Bill Bryson
250			_a1st ed.
260			_aNew York _b: Broadway Books _c, c2006.
300			_ax, 270 p. _b: ill. _c; 25 cm.
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [269]-270).
520			_aFrom one of the most beloved and bestselling authors in the English language, a vivid, nostalgic, and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the 1950s Bill Bryson was born in the middle of the American century 1951in the middle of the United States Des Moines, Iowa in the middle of the largest generation in American history the baby boomers. As one of the best and funniest writers alive, he is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24-carat memoir gold. Like millions of his generational peers, Bill Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero. In his case, he ran around his house and neighborhood with an old football jersey with a thunderbolt on it and a towel about his neck that served as his cape, leaping tall buildings in a single bound and vanquishing awful evildoers (and morons) in his head as "The Thunderbolt Kid." Using this persona as a springboard, Bill Bryson re-creates the life of his family and his native city in the 1950s in all its transcendent normality a life at once completely familiar to us all and as far away and unreachable as another galaxy. It was, he reminds us, a happy time, when automobiles and televisions and appliances (not to mention nuclear weapons) grew larger and more numerous with each passing year, and DDT, cigarettes, and the fallout from atmospheric testing were considered harmless or even good for you. He brings us into the life of his loving but eccentric family, including affectionate portraits of his father, a gifted sportswriter for the local paper and dedicated practitioner of isometric exercises, and OF his mother, whose job as the home furnishing editor for the same paper left her little time for practicing the domestic arts at home. The many readers of Bill Bryson's earlier classic. A Walk in the Woods,will greet the reappearance in these pages of the immortal Stephen Katz, seen hijacking literally boxcar loads of beer. He is joined in the Bryson gallery of immortal characters by the demonically clever Willoughby brothers, who apply their scientific skills and can-do attitude to gleefully destructive ends. Warm and laugh-out-loud funny, and full of his inimitable, pitch-perfect observations,The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kidis as wondrous a book as Bill Bryson has ever written. It will enchant anyone who has ever been young.
600	1	0	_aBryson, Bill, 1951-
650		0	_aTravel writers _x--United States -- Biography.
942			_cMO
999			_c263765 _d263765