The Life And Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir [Anglais] [Relié]

For most of his adult life, Bryson has made his home in the U.K, yet he actually entered the world in 1951 as part of America's postwar baby boom and spent his formative years in Des Moines, Iowa. Bryson wistfully recounts a childhood of innocence and optimism, a magical point in time when a distinct sense of regional and community identity briefly—but blissfully—coexisted with fledgling technology and modern convenience. Narrating, Bryson skillfully wields his amorphous accent—somehow neither fully British nor Midwestern—to project a genial and entertaining tour guide of lost Americana. In portraying the boyish exploits of his "Thunderbolt Kid" superhero alter ego, he convincingly evokes both the unadulterated joys and everyday battles of childhood. As an added bonus, the final CD features an interview with Bryson in which he reflects on the process of writing his autobiography and discussing the broader social and cultural insights that he gleaned from the experience.
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Adult/High School–The Thunderbolt Kid was born in the 1950s when six-year-old Bryson found a mysterious, scratchy green sweater with a satiny thunderbolt across the chest. The jersey bestowed magic powers on the wearer–X-ray vision and the power to zap teachers and babysitters and deflect unwanted kisses from old people. These are the memoirs of that Kid, whose earthly parents were not really half bad–a loving mother who didn't cook and was pathologically forgetful, but shared her love of movies with her youngest child, and a dad who was the greatest baseball writer that ever lived and took his son to dugouts and into clubhouses where he met such famous players as Stan Musial and Willie Mays. Simpler times are conveyed with exaggerated humor; the author recalls the middle of the last century in the middle of the country (Des Moines, IA), when cigarettes were good for you, waxy candies were considered delicious, and kids were taught to read with Dick and Jane. Students of the decade's popular culture will marvel at the insular innocence described, even as the world moved toward nuclear weapons and civil unrest. Bryson describes country fairs and fantastic ploys to maneuver into the tent to see the lady stripper, playing hookey, paper routes, church suppers, and more. His reminiscences will entertain a wide audience.–Jackie Gropman, Chantilly Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA
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If you've had the pleasure of hearing Bryson speak, you know he's a master of understated humor. If you haven't had that pleasure, an enjoyable new experience awaits you in this memoir of growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, in the 1950s.Why, you may ask, does a man raised in Iowa speak with a mostly English accent? It's because he's spent much of his adult life in England. That choice does not diminish his fond appreciation of growing up happily with his journalist parents in a kid-friendly community. Bryson punctuates his account by acknowledging such less happy aspects of the era as the Civil Rights Movement, as well as fear of Communism, the A-bomb, and polio. But, on balance, his story is good-natured and often laugh-out-loud funny. S.K. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition CD .

Travel humorist Bryson took a decisive stand regarding his hometown almost 20 years ago when he published the story "Fat Girls in Des Moines" in Granta magazine. Now the author of A Walk in the Woods (1998) and I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1999) delves more deeply into his midwestern roots in a bittersweet, laugh-out-loud recollection of his growing-up years. "I can't imagine there has ever been a more gratifying time or place to be alive than America in the 1950s," Bryson notes, and his wry account gives as much attention to spiraling American prosperity and the escalating arms race as it does to the elusive strippers at the state fair and the popularity of comic-book superheroes (a group Bryson was certain he belonged to after discovering a mysterious wool jersey emblazoned with a thunderbolt in his basement). Throughout, Bryson pays homage to his father, "the best baseball writer of his generation," and his "wholesome, friendly, nurturing community," complete with movie palaces, cafeterias, and a castlelike elementary school (where his lax attendance led to his "missing more days than a boy with a fatal illness"). This affectionate portrait wistfully recalls the bygone days of Burns and Allen and downtown department stores but with a good-natured elbow poke to the ribs. Laura Tillotson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Bill Bryson on his most personal journey yet: into his own childhood in America's Mid-West. --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .

Bill Bryson on his most personal journey yet: into his own childhood in America's Mid-West. --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .

Bill Bryson’s bestselling travel books include The Lost Continent, Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods and Down Under. His last book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, and won the Aventis Prize for Science Books and the Descartes Science Communication Prize. --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Broché .