Customer Reviews
Very...well, Bryson - By: Teemacs, 14 Oct 2008 
Bill Bryson's first book "The Lost Continent" starts with the line "I came from Des Moines, Iowa. Somebody had to." We now get the slightly exaggerated childhood & adolescence of Bill Bryson, aka The Thunderbolt Kid (in his own mind anyway)in Des Moinesin the 1950s, when lifein the USA for the average person was at its very best & unequalled anywhere else. Mr. Bryson presents an affectionate picture of the now-disappeared small(ish)-town Americain the pre-McDonald's era, before Everywhere became like Everywhere Else.
I confess that I am a sucker for his droll style & keen sense of observation - he seems to have a talent for making the ordinary wryly amusing & even laugh-out-loud funny. I can understand why other people wouldn't find this book as thoroughly enjoyable as some of his other stuff. I'm not one of those.
A Gem of a Book! - By: THE Music Enthusiast, 10 Oct 2008 "The Life & Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" is a gem of a bookin which Bill Bryson takes us back to when he was a young boyin 1950s America. These memories are fond & poignant, as well as laced with a dose of Bill's trademark wit. Against the backdrop of the trends, commercialism & politics taking placein America at the time, he discusses his family & some of his childhood friends, relating the exploits he shared with each. He also talks about his curiosity of thenin members of the opposite sex, about day-trips, boring toys, comic books, school days, a beer heist & other topics, allin a way only he & no-one else could describe them.
I really enjoyed the book, just as much as I enjoy his travel writing. The final chapter, "Farewell", was one of my favourites,in which he relates what his friends ended up doing with their adult lives all these years later & how times have changed. The only thing I didn't like about the book was the use of the Thunderbolt Kid character itself. Whenever he used it the writing suddenly sounded childish & out of place, really throwing the narrative. But this only a minor quibble of course & didn't spoil the book for me.
The language is pure Bryson, never a dull momentin the text. Of all the Bryson-ismsin the book, my personal favourites were his reference to boring toys as producing "negative ecstasy", & this description of the plain clothes detective: "He had the last flat-topin America." Superb!
Nobody does it like Bryson!
Perfection - By: Akaibi Vine, 19 Aug 2008 
I bought this book without knowing anything about Bill or his following, what her wrote or how he wrote. It was literally a last minute buy before a 2 week holiday. I'd finished before the end of the first week.
I was instantly drawnin by his characteristic writing style, which is playful & informative as ever. I loved learning about his childhood & all the events which surrounded it. I was literallyin awe. I'd never read like this before.
So after a week & a halfin Cyprus with nothing to read, I was home & went to a bookstore to buy another of his (Notes from a Large Country) which I loved as well.
I've read a few of his now, but still none beat this. And no other writers compare. Read this book!
Not one of his best - for UK readers - By: P. Matthews, 07 Jul 2008 
In this book, Bryson reminisces about life growing upin Iowain the 1950s. For anyone else who was a kidin the USin the 1950s, I am sure this book will bring back nostalgic memories. But for those of us who grew upin the UK, the lists of the food he ate, drinks he drank, baseball games he saw & TV shows he watched have very little meaning. The book is writtenin Bryson's familiar humorous avuncular style, & is quite amusingin places (though much of the humour is rather lavatorial). But it is notin the same league as, for example, Notes From a Small Island. There are the usual exaggerated anecdotes, where the reader is left pondering how much truth there isin them, & the usual nostalgia for times past. I am surprised it has got such good reviews here. Perhaps if I wasn't such a Bryson fan, I wouldn't be so disappointed.
Simply brilliant. - By: Joanne Schofield, 14 Jun 2008 Ah....you know that lovely satisfied feeling you get when you're drinking a cup of tea & eating a couple of chocolate digestives? You'll get the same kind of pleasure you get from reading this book.
It's a memoir of Bill Bryson's childhood; a wonderful tale of Americain the 50's through the eyes of a young boy who would one day entertain us all with his wonderful writing skills. I think this is probably one of his best books - as well as detailing fascinating snippets of 1950's small town America, it's also a poignant recollection of a world which has gone forever. It's a story that makes you laugh out loud one minute (this happened a lot) & then smile nostalgically the next as you remember the good old days & times when the world seemed so much bigger, (probably because we were all so much more smaller?).
Wonderful, warm & witty. Tea & chocolate on paper basically.
