Buy new:
$9.49
FREE delivery: Wednesday, April 24 on orders over $35.00 shipped by Amazon.
Ships from: Amazon.com
Sold by: Amazon.com
List Price: $19.00 Details

The List Price is the suggested retail price of a new product as provided by a manufacturer, supplier, or seller. Except for books, Amazon will display a List Price if the product was purchased by customers on Amazon or offered by other retailers at or above the List Price in at least the past 90 days. List prices may not necessarily reflect the product's prevailing market price.
Learn more
Save: $9.51 (50%)
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Wednesday, April 24 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35. Order within 1 hr 12 mins
In Stock
$$9.49 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$9.49
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon.com
Ships from
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Returns
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Returns
Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime
FREE delivery Wednesday, April 24 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35. Order within 1 hr 12 mins
Used: Very Good | Details
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comment: Nice clean copy with no highlighting or writing. We take pride in our accurate descriptions. Satisfaction Guaranteed.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Other Sellers on Amazon
Added
$9.45
FREE Shipping
Get free shipping
Free shipping within the U.S. when you order $35.00 of eligible items shipped by Amazon.
Or get faster shipping on this item starting at $5.99 . (Prices may vary for AK and HI.)
Learn more about free shipping
on orders over $35.00 shipped by Amazon.
Sold by: Book Store 111
Sold by: Book Store 111
(8 ratings)
63% positive over last 12 months
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Shipping rates and Return policy
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir Paperback – September 25, 2007

4.4 out of 5 stars 4,973

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$9.49","priceAmount":9.49,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"9","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"49","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"xSb9Ca%2FKLz56h0Ad358zGaos2E1zim6vp3sCDPLBsIUh3YoslPJ2s%2Bnt6quRH2TTWPJUivM3ORBLXQbuoFm340aS3muGwuG5Fp%2BS4k%2BRW%2FALNEX9XbjVE2sHknYDrhDWU8T2DZtiyTQ%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$6.94","priceAmount":6.94,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"6","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"94","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"xSb9Ca%2FKLz56h0Ad358zGaos2E1zim6vx6n%2FNqvM0SSH9K%2Bf5OhiMg2wvE%2FEVVmnila64nhQ0CVf18Pe5apeT6kByeXRzpygOIm6SJN%2BWS1McV1jWeYeZh24F8dOdp4U9VUo8TYdL%2B5kst%2BEDaIlYZmyz8vgPdH64sT7qkuSe9zCtmP4C4Lo6YndKvkVTYy2","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

From one of the world's most beloved writers and New York Times bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods and The Body, a vivid, nostalgic, and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the 1950s.

Bill Bryson was born in the middle of the American century—1951—in the middle of the United States—Des Moines, Iowa—in the middle of the largest generation in American history—the baby boomers. As one of the best and funniest writers alive, he is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24-carat memoir gold. Like millions of his generational peers, Bill Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero. In his case, he ran around his house and neighborhood with an old football jersey with a thunderbolt on it and a towel about his neck that served as his cape, leaping tall buildings in a single bound and vanquishing awful evildoers (and morons)—in his head—as "The Thunderbolt Kid."

Using this persona as a springboard, Bill Bryson re-creates the life of his family and his native city in the 1950s in all its transcendent normality—a life at once completely familiar to us all and as far away and unreachable as another galaxy. It was, he reminds us, a happy time, when automobiles and televisions and appliances (not to mention nuclear weapons) grew larger and more numerous with each passing year, and DDT, cigarettes, and the fallout from atmospheric testing were considered harmless or even good for you. He brings us into the life of his loving but eccentric family, including affectionate portraits of his father, a gifted sportswriter for the local paper and dedicated practitioner of isometric exercises, and of his mother, whose job as the home furnishing editor for the same paper left her little time for practicing the domestic arts at home. The many readers of Bill Bryson’s earlier classic,
A Walk in the Woods, will greet the reappearance in these pages of the immortal Stephen Katz, seen hijacking literally boxcar loads of beer. He is joined in the Bryson gallery of immortal characters by the demonically clever Willoughby brothers, who apply their scientific skills and can-do attitude to gleefully destructive ends.

Warm and laugh-out-loud funny, and full of his inimitable, pitch-perfect observations,
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is as wondrous a book as Bill Bryson has ever written. It will enchant anyone who has ever been young.

The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Frequently bought together

$9.49
Get it as soon as Wednesday, Apr 24
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
$11.39
Get it as soon as Wednesday, Apr 24
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
$9.48
Get it as soon as Wednesday, Apr 24
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
Choose items to buy together.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Bill Bryson’s laugh-out-loud pilgrimage through his Fifties childhood in heartland America is a national treasure. It’s full of insights, wit, and wicked adolescent fantasies.”
—Tom Brokaw

“Bryson is unparalleled in his ability to cut a culture off at the knees in a way that is so humorous and so affectionate that those being ridiculed are laughing too hard to take offense.”
The Wall Street Journal

“A cross between de Tocqueville and Dave Barry, Bryson writes about…America in a way that’s both trenchantly observant and pound-on-the-floor, snort-root-beer-out-of-your-nose funny.”
San Franciso Examiner

“Bill Bryson could write an essay about dryer lint or fever reducers and still make us laugh out loud.”
Chicago Sun-Times

“Bryson is…great company…a lumbering, droll, neatnik intellectual who comes off as equal parts Garrison Keillor, Michael Kinsley, and…Dave Barry.”
New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Bill Bryson's bestselling books include A Walk in the WoodsThe Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, and A Short History of Nearly Everything (which won the Aventis Prize in Britain and the Descartes Prize, the European Union's highest literary award). He was chancellor of Durham University, England's third oldest university, from 2005 to 2011, and is an honorary fellow of Britain's Royal Society.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crown (September 25, 2007)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 270 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0767919378
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0767919371
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1330L
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.19 x 0.77 x 7.97 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 4,973

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Bill Bryson
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. Settled in England for many years, he moved to America with his wife and four children for a few years ,but has since returned to live in the UK. His bestselling travel books include The Lost Continent, Notes From a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods and Down Under. His acclaimed work of popular science, A Short History of Nearly Everything, won the Aventis Prize and the Descartes Prize, and was the biggest selling non-fiction book of the decade in the UK.

Photography © Julian J

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
4,973 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2024
One of the funniest books I've read recently. Bryson sometimes had me ROTFL. Also a revealing insight into what it meant to grow up as a Boomer.
Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2024
Enjoyable Reading and ordering more of Bill Bryson's books.
Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2024
Relive your 50s childhood in this well written romp through memory; a laugh on every page
Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2016
My husband received this book as a gift from my step-mother. She had no idea what a perfect gift it was for him, since he was born in Des Moines, Iowa, where the adventures in this book took place. While my husband is younger than the author, his brother was the same age and it could almost be written by him. My husband's siblings have now all read this book or will have once his last sister receives this in the mail. Had to share it with her, but did not want to give up our own copy. It's a keeper.

While I, myself, grew up elsewhere, there are a lot of similarities with my own experiences of growing up in small town America, same types of businesses, just different names, same feel. It's really about growing up in the '50's and '60's all across America. If you grew up in that time era, you will most likely find similarities in your own life. Reading this book is like sitting down with the author, himself, and hearing his stories of growing up.

This book is fabulously nostalgic, warmly engaging, and truly laugh-out-loud funny.

While reading this book has led to reading other books by Bill Bryson, this is my husband's very favorite. Parts of it, he read aloud to me and I loved it as well.

If this review has been helpful to you, please indicate below. I rely heavily on reviews of others, so have tried to review this to the best of my ability. Read the book. It's great!
20 people found this helpful
Report
Reviewed in the United States on August 3, 2023
Bill Bryson has captured my life in 1950's America. Parents followed the same guide to raise their children. This book reminded me of those years, and the rules I was expected to follow, and getting caught when I didn't. I laughed until I cried, this is so hilarious. Loved this book so much, this is the 5th time I've ordered it to give to friends.
2 people found this helpful
Report
Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2008
My primary motivation for buying this book is that I, like the author, grew up in Des Moines in the fifties (and left it for college and a career in the sixties), and I hoped that it would be a pleasant trip down memory lane. In that regard, the author is largely successful in evoking a time and a place that I knew and loved. Indeed, I was surprised by his recall of Des Moines in the fifties, because when the curtain closed on that decade, Mr. Bryson, by my calculation, was in the third grade (I was in the eleventh).

The book is well written and humorous (the result of more than a little comedic license, I suspect), and it triggered some wonderful memories of Des Moines. (The author does not limit himself to Des Moines: he tries, with mixed success, to examine America in the fifties.) But while many of his descriptions of places that I knew from my youth resonated, I could not identify with the author, who grew up in one of the more affluent neighborhoods of the city's Westside, the most affluent side of town, light years from the working class neighborhood I called home. Increasingly as I read his story, I heard the voice of a privileged kid; a privileged kid whose arrogance got the better of him when, in describing Riverview amusement park, he had this to say: "Kids from the Riverview district went to a high school so forlorn and characterless that it didn't have a proper name, just a geographical designation: North High. They detested kids from Theodore Roosevelt High School, the outpost of privilege, comfort, and quality footwear for which we were destined." I graduated from East High School, the other Des Moines high school possessed of a mere geographical designation, and I admit to having detested kids from Roosevelt. After reading the above, I was surprised to realize, decades later, that I still do. Despite these feelings, I think that Mr. Bryson and I can agree on this: Des Moines was a great place, and the fifties a wonderful time, in which to grow up.
5 people found this helpful
Report
Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2023
Six members of my senior book group read this, two of us loved it and enjoyed it immensely. One member of the group liked it and found the historical bits especially interesting. The other three women did not care for the book.
We noticed that if you were the mother of boys you were more inclined to enjoy the story. The three women who didn’t like the book all raised daughters. Many of us are the same age as Bill Bryson, the author, the majority of us are even older than him.
I loved the book and laughed a lot throughout it! Thanks Bill Bryson!
2 people found this helpful
Report

Top reviews from other countries

cansuite
5.0 out of 5 stars Bryson for Boomers
Reviewed in Canada on January 24, 2023
One of my favourite Bill Bryson books and anyone growing up in the 50s and 60s can certainly relate. A great read - galloping through childhood when we ran in packs and were told to stay outside until the streetlights came on and neighbourhood stores and restaurants were distinctive and locally owned and operated. If you're a Boomer and want to put a spotlight on your childhood then this is the book.
Mr. R. Barlow
5.0 out of 5 stars The thunderbolt Kid, a delightful memoir (sort of)
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 13, 2023
As wonderful and humorous as his other books, makes one think of one's own childhood and all the things that have disappeared and been lost or discarded, have to admit it brought a lump to my throat on occasion and a feeling that was at once delightful and at the same time ineffably sad, it's a book that acknowledges that the past is indeed a foreign country.
Idahocrow
5.0 out of 5 stars Good memories
Reviewed in Spain on June 14, 2023
Reading
Leselustig
5.0 out of 5 stars ‚Atomic loos were GOOD for you!‘
Reviewed in Germany on March 4, 2023
I love this book to death, I really do. I‘ve read the paperback edition so often it fell apart, and have now switched to the digital edition to prevent further destruction. Bill Bryson is hilarious, and wise, and deeply humane in all of his writing, and nowhere more so than in this book.
MADHVI PANDE
5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining as expected
Reviewed in India on March 11, 2017
A lot of bill brysons books are nostalgic, he generally prefers things in the past.. with good reason! But like all his books this is a delightful read because the language is so clever and funny