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The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir | 
 enlarge | Creator: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Random House Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $17.00
You Save: $12.95 (43%)
New (25) Used (11) from $14.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 211633
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 7
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.2 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0739315234
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.4092
EAN: 9780739315231
ASIN: 0739315234
Publication Date: October 17, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
Reflecting on a fun/scary transitional period in America July 11, 2008
As we Boomers are pushing our kids out of the nest, we are finding time to write. And what better topic to write about than ourselves? Bill Bryson adds his personal, perceptive and funny reminiscences of an Iowan boyhood in the 50s in the form of "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir," a fast-paced romp through a typical 50s childhood. Bryson combines solid period research, mature reflection, genuine memories and (too often?) outrageous exaggerations of fact into a memoir of a his wild childhood. He touches all the generational bases -- polio, the Red Scare, Sputnik, A-bomb drills, TV and comic book heroes as well as the personal ones about clueless parents, trying to get in to see the strippers at the fair, petty theft at the candy store, local brands of soda, hocking looeys in the Tunnel of Love and harassing managers when the lights dimmed at the movie house. Given the title of his memoir, it's surprising that his alter-ego -- The Thunderbolt Kid -- makes so few appearances in the book and seemed added almost as an afterthought or marketing ploy.
Nevertheless, I got a kick out of The Thunderbolt Kid, and it made me think back on my own childhood at the end of the 50s. Bryson's comments as funny and often on the mark. His short takes on 50s for black Americans, on the Army-McCarthy hearings and on the US's hapless late-50s space shots were educational. I found that Bryson's fictional swings actually diminished the effectiveness of the book -- it was sometimes hard to tell where reality left off and mendacity-as-entertainment began. No matter. An age in which kids spent their summers outside and unsupervised, in which neighbors were invited over to see the new fridge, and in which church suppers and county fairs were the major means of entertainment, and in which causal racism was pervasive and barely noted is increasingly difficult to recall. Bravo to Bill Bryson for helping us remember.
 A lost world revisited November 8, 2007
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.
Bryson Scores Again! May 12, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Bill Bryson's story of growing up in Iowa is a terrific book. I bought it in large print for my mother, who can read only large print, and who has difficulty hearing too, so this is the only way she could enjoy the book. She too adores Bill Bryson. We love his facility with language, and his many ways of making us laugh. He's a marvelous storyteller.
Great Fun February 13, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This was a wonderful book, which also deviates here and there into politics and general history.
I really came to enjoy Bryson's observations about how "the good old days" were also fraught with some significant downsides, which we've gratefully grown beyond.
One carp: Bryson himself reads the audio edition, and he's not the most gifted reader I've ever heard. He's so laconic that the material really has to carry itself.
H'mmm - maybe that's not such a bad thing after all...anyway, you'll enjoy this book in any form.
PS - if you like this, you'll love the writings of Jean Shepard, too.
Let's Trade Childhoods January 11, 2007
Bill Bryson is by far the funniest, most insightful, travel writer today.
Here his travels are temporal, instead of spacial as he takes us back to his childhood - and what a childhood it was. His writing is so personal and open that you can't help but feel that this book was written specifically for you.
It is both a very middle class North American tale, set in the fifties and a Calvin archetype (as in Calvin and Hobbes) visioneering a rich and adventurous landscape, that none of the adults could see.
May The Thunderbolt Kid ride again.
David Cale
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