Some say that the first hint that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came when his mother sent him to school in lime-green Capri pants. Others think it all started with his discovery, at the age of six, of a woollen jersey of rare fineness. Across the moth-holed chest was a golden thunderbolt.

It may have looked like an old college football sweater, but young Bryson knew better. Bill Bryson's first travel book opened with the immortal line, 'I come from Des Moines. ' In his deeply funny new memoir, he travels back in time to explore the ordinary kid he once was, and the curious world of 1950s America.

It was a happy time, when almost everything was good for you, including DDT, cigarettes and nuclear fallout. This is a book about growing up in a specific time and place. But in Bryson's hands, it becomes everyone's story, one that will speak volumes – especially to anyone who has ever been young.