The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir | Bill Bryson

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir | Bill Bryson | It's a Howl

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The Life and Times...

	The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir Bill Bryson Broadway, 2006 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 212 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Simply hilarious

I wound up reading this book because, well, I was forced. It was required reading for a class I took and otherwise I would have likely never touched it. Of all the books to be tasked with reading, I must tip my hat to my professors for choosing such a great one to read. I was literally finished with it in 24 hours which were chalked full of full on laughter. My big mistake was to attempt to read this book in a public place, which for me was at a dog park in sunny Florida while sipping sweet tea. It was during the bit about toys in the 1950s that sent sweet tea squirting through my nose as I broke out in uncontrollable laughter complete with tears in the middle of a crowd of strangers. Despite being born in 1986, I found this book to be hilarious and interesting, even more so since my father, who was raised in the 60's, is from Iowa. Bryson brilliantly calls upon the collective memory of society that has been formed by "I love Lucy", Elvis, retro ads, and the shared experience of childhood and pairs it with detailed hyperbole which shouts "it's funny because it's true" for all generations.

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It's a Howl

Born in the 40s, I don't think I've ever laughed so hard reading a book. On the New York subways, where passengers give new meaning to the word "jaded," even they look at me as if I'm crazy as I cackle aloud. Bill Bryson has put me on the nostalgia express, somehow making every paragraph worth at least a chortle as he reminds me, who grew up on the East Coast, about life surprisingly so like mine in his Midwest. School, parents, cars, television, sexual mores and a raft of other subjects are the targets of his incisive and derisive wit. Not even having reached the sad day when I will finish this book, I couldn't wait to write my first Amazon review. I'm also personally recommending it to all my roughly Baby Boom friends. Don't fail to read this book, which, in case you missed my point, I loved unreservedly.

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A good laugh for the babyboomers....

This was such a good laugh, I fell out of my chair....I also decided to buy a copy for my brother who was born the same year as Bryson. Although we weren't born in Iowa, our grandparents were from there, and there are definitely cultural attributes that came down to us from them! But even better, it isn't just funny. Bryson shares poignant reflections on some of what we've lost along the way since the 50's, as nuts as they were.

Was prepared to like it but halfway thru it gets pretty old

Reading this for a book discussion group, I thought it would be lighter than some we read and having been born in '53 I thought I could relate. Well after half the book it gets pretty old. I mean who couldn't write such a book? I was there, I watched Batman and Sea Hunt, too, so what's so entertaining about reading about someone else who did, too but decided to put it down on paper? The hyperbole is what makes it funny at times, and at other times the exaggeration catches you off guard. And what's the point of using the "F" word out of the blue??? Pretty strange to find this in a book about one's youth, and I'm no prude; it's one of my favorites; I just find it totally out of place here! The thing about romanticizing about the past is, you know it's all BS, that things are being looked at with rose-colored glasses and they weren't really as good as you remember them. Ok, it's supposed to be light, but there's a certain phony character about such superficial treatment of an era like the 50s, and families weren't really all like Donna Reed and Father Knows Best. Remember, I was there, too. The Thunderbolt Kid is a truly minor character, too, to the point of it being invented just for the sake of having a cutesy title.

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