BILL BRYSON The Thunderbolt Kid **(*)

I don't know why I bothered reading this book to the end. I think I expected to stumble across a really funny bit. But it rarely raised a smile.

It's one extended joke - exaggeration to supposedly comic effect - on the lines of "Every morning a million kids would stumble downstairs for breakfast. The bacon mother cooked for them was of a quality and quantity which could have threatened Iowa's leather industry had mother chosen to market it."