THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE THUNDERBOLT KID

Like most really good memoirs, Bill Bryson’s engaging and funny portrait of his childhood in 1950s Iowa is not a straightforward “this happened to me and then this happened” narrative, but rather an homage to a particular place and time, suffused with personal anecdotes. Its blend of charming nostalgia and broad comic exaggeration reminded me vaguely of Calvin Trillin and kept me happy during a series of grinding commutes. I particularly liked the audiobook because it was read by the author—not always a great idea, but it works well for memoirs, and Bryson is an entertaining reader with an intriguing mid-Atlantic accent (he’s lived in England for so long that he sounds perfectly British sometimes, but then at other times you can hear the Des Moines boy underneath).