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008			060303s2006 nyua b 000 0aeng
010			_a 2006043859
020			_a076791936X
020			_a9780552772549
040			_aDLC _cDLC _dDLC _beng
050			_aG154.B79 A3
082			_a910.4092
100	1		_aBryson, Bill.
245	1	4	_aThe life and times of the thunderbolt kid : _ba memoir / _cBill Bryson.
260			_aNew York : _bBroadway Books, _c2006.
300			_a404 pages : _billustrations ; _c20 cm
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [269]-270).
520			_aBill Bryson was born in the middle of the American century�1951—in 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 Kid is as wondrous a book as Bill Bryson has ever written. It will enchant anyone who has ever been young.
600	1	0	_aBryson, Bill.
650		0	_aTravel writers _zUnited States _vBiography.
906			_a7 _bcbc _corignew _d1 _eocip _f20 _gy-gencatlg
942			_2ddc _cBK _n0
999			_c6223 _d6223