The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson

Abby Mortensen, M.S. Instructor in Molecular Biology and Microbiology, emerita (Jackson College).

Mondays for two weeks. 10 a.m. – 12 noon. February 1, 8.

This class will be treated as a book club offering (lecture and guided discussion). Held in Google Meeting; instructions will be provided to participants.

Bill Bryson grew up in the middle of the 1950s and 1960s, in the middle of the U.S. (Des Moines, Iowa), a childhood in a time now gone by, in a place whose charming and unique features are now erased. But his memories of it are hilarious, wistful, poignant and insightful, an analysis of a place and time seen with warmth and fondness, as the unsparing perspective of today. Bryson’s writing and wit are incomparable. One reviewer commented that Bryson could write about dryer lint and make you laugh out loud. It is a book that people of all ages can enjoy, but especially those of us who grew up in those times as well, and saw our childhood homes blurred in the conformity of today. We will remember the glee, the devilish plots, the mad capers and the cruelties of kids, or friends and playmates, and the unique people and places that were treasures of a place now gone. It is joyful, funny and sometimes sad, but a romp worth reading!

Bryson, a Midwesterner by birth, lived in England for twenty years and then relocated in the United States where he now lives in New Hampshire with his wife and children. Other works include A Walk in the Woods, Notes from a Small Island, In a Sun-Burned Country, and The Mother Tongue.

Text: Bill Bryson. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir. New York: Broadway Books, 2006. (A number of different editions are available.)