The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
by Bill Bryson

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $16.52
You Save: $13.43 (45%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $2.59 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Bill Bryson
Reader: Bill Bryson
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Published: 2006-10-17
ISBN: 0739315234
Publisher: Random House Audio

Book Reviews of The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir

Book Review: A lost world revisited
Summary: 5 Stars

As always, Bryson is informative (the Thunderbolt Kid is really an excellent history of the 1950s and '60s in the U.S.) and wonderfully amusing (as in laugh out loud).

He's also an excellent narrator of this audio book.

Just one caveat. While the book is funny and interesting throughout, from my vantage point, at least, little about Bryson as a teenager was appealing: he essentially opted out of high school life, chose to spend minimal time with his family, was a petty thief, and starting at age 14 smoked like a chimney and drank a lot of alcohol. If you can't tolerate hearing about a kid like that, don't get this book.

Summary of The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir

BONUS FEATURE: Exclusive interview with the author.

From one of the most beloved and bestselling authors in the English language, a vivid, nostalgic and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the middle of the United States in the middle of the last century. A book that delivers on the promise that it is ?laugh-out-loud funny.?

Some say that the first hints that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came from 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. It was obviously the Sacred Jersey of Zap, and proved that he had been placed with this innocuous family in the middle of America to fly, become invisible, shoot guns out of people?s hands from a distance, and wear his underpants over his jeans in the manner of Superman.

Bill Bryson?s first travel book opened with the immortal line, ?I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.? In this hilarious new memoir, he travels back to explore the kid he once was and the weird and wonderful world of 1950s America. He modestly claims that this is a book about not very much: about being small and getting much larger slowly. But for the rest of us, it is a laugh-out-loud book that will speak volumes ? especially to anyone who has ever been young.

Authors Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Authors Books
Bloomsbury Recalled ImageBloomsbury Recalled
by Quentin Bell
Columbia University Press; Published: 1997-01-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.39
Price in other shops: $29.00
William Tyndale: A Biography ImageWilliam Tyndale: A Biography
by David Daniell
Yale University Press; Published: 1994-11-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $62.92
Neither Saints Nor Sinners: Writing the Lives of Women in Spanish America ImageNeither Saints Nor Sinners: Writing the Lives of Women in Spanish America
by Kathleen Ann Myers
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2003-08-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.00
Price in other shops: $45.00
Storm of Steel (Penguin Classics) ImageStorm of Steel (Penguin Classics)
by Ernst Jünger
Penguin Classics; Published: 2004-05-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.00
Price in other shops: $16.00
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life ImageSurprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
by C.S. Lewis
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Published: 1995-11-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.22
Price in other shops: $18.00
Roughing It (The Penguin American Library) ImageRoughing It (The Penguin American Library)
by Mark Twain
Penguin Classics; Published: 1981-12-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.65
Price in other shops: $16.00
Life Is So Good: One Man's Extraordinary Journey through the 20th Century and How he Learned to Read at Age 98 ImageLife Is So Good: One Man's Extraordinary Journey through the 20th Century and How he Learned to Read at Age 98
by George Dawson, Richard Glaubman
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2001-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.49
Price in other shops: $15.00
Shakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives) ImageShakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives)
by Bill Bryson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops: $13.99
The Professor and the Madman CD ImageThe Professor and the Madman CD
by Simon Winchester
HarperAudio; Published: 2005-10-04; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $8.45
Price in other shops: $14.95
Alexander Hamilton: A Life ImageAlexander Hamilton: A Life
by Willard Sterne Randall
Harper; Published: 2003-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.80
Price in other shops: $32.50
Similar Books and other products
The Mother Tongue - English And How It Got That Way ImageThe Mother Tongue - English And How It Got That Way
by Bill Bryson
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 1990; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.21
Price in other shops: $14.99
I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years ImageI'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years
by Bill Bryson
Random House Audio; Published: 1999-05-04; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $13.00
Price in other shops: $29.95
Neither Here Nor There ImageNeither Here Nor There
by Bill Bryson
Corgi Audio; Published: 2004-06-03; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $18.82
Shakespeare: The World as Stage ImageShakespeare: The World as Stage
by Bill Bryson
HarperAudio; Published: 2008-10-21; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $7.15
Price in other shops: $14.99
A Short History of Nearly Everything ImageA Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson
Random House Audio; Published: 2003-05; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $17.08
Price in other shops: $29.95
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir ImageThe Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
by Bill Bryson
Broadway; Published: 2007-09-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.56
Price in other shops: $15.99
In a Sunburned Country ImageIn a Sunburned Country
by Bill Bryson
Random House Audio; Published: 2000-06-06; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $28.93
Price in other shops: $49.95
At Home: A Short History of Private Life ImageAt Home: A Short History of Private Life
by Bill Bryson
Random House Audio; Published: 2010-10-05; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $24.99
Price in other shops: $45.00
A Walk in the Woods ImageA Walk in the Woods
by Bill Bryson
Random House Audio; Published: 1998-05-04; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $16.81
Price in other shops: $29.95
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories