Author: Bill Bryson File Type: pdf A charming, funny recounting of growing up in Des Moines during the sleepy 1950s. Bryson combines nostalgia, sharp wit and a dash of hyperbole to recreate his childhood in the rural Midwest. A great, fun read, especially for Baby Boomers nostalgic for the good old days. Kirkus Reviews StarredWhile many memoirs convey a bittersweet nostalgia, Bill Brysons loving look at his childhood in The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid * is genuinely sweet. Framed within young Brysons fantasy of being a superhero, it matches the authors sparkling wit with his vivid, candid memories of 1950s America. Adding a healthy dose of social history, Bryson tells a larger story, with vignettes that reveal the gap between Americas postwar glow and its underlying angst. Bryson also touchingly recalls his fathers career as a sportswriter, his mothers awkward experiments with cooking and the outrageous adventures of his infamous traveling companion, Stephen Katz.*Publishers Weekly, Fall PreviewBill Brysons laugh-out-loud pilgrimage through his Fifties childhood in heartland America is a national treasure. Its full of insights, wit, and wicked adolescent fantasies. *Tom Brokaw, NBC News*Bryson recounts the world of his younger self, buried in comic books in the Kiddie Corral at the local supermarket, resisting civil defense drills at school, and fruitlessly trying to unravel the mysteries of sex. His alter ego, the Thunderbolt Kid, born of his love for comic-book superheroes and the need to vaporize irritating people, serves as an astute outside observer of life around him. His familys foibles are humorously presented, from his mothers burnt, bland cooking to his fathers epic cheapness. The larger world of 1950s America emerges through the lens...From Publishers WeeklyFor most of his adult life, Bryson has made his home in the U.K, yet he actually entered the world in 1951 as part of Americas postwar baby boom and spent his formative years in Des Moines, Iowa. Bryson wistfully recounts a childhood of innocence and optimism, a magical point in time when a distinct sense of regional and community identity brieflybut blissfullycoexisted with fledgling technology and modern convenience. Narrating, Bryson skillfully wields his amorphous accentsomehow neither fully British nor Midwesternto project a genial and entertaining tour guide of lost Americana. In portraying the boyish exploits of his Thunderbolt Kid superhero alter ego, he convincingly evokes both the unadulterated joys and everyday battles of childhood. As an added bonus, the final CD features an interview with Bryson in which he reflects on the process of writing his autobiography and discussing the broader social and cultural insights that he gleaned from the experience. Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. From School Library JournalAdultHigh SchoolThe Thunderbolt Kid was born in the 1950s when six-year-old Bryson found a mysterious, scratchy green sweater with a satiny thunderbolt across the chest. The jersey bestowed magic powers on the wearerX-ray vision and the power to zap teachers and babysitters and deflect unwanted kisses from old people. These are the memoirs of that Kid, whose earthly parents were not really half bada loving mother who didnt cook and was pathologically forgetful, but shared her love of movies with her youngest child, and a dad who was the greatest baseball writer that ever lived and took his son to dugouts and into clubhouses where he met such famous players as Stan Musial and Willie Mays. Simpler times are conveyed with exaggerated humor the author recalls the middle of the last century in the middle of the country (Des Moines, IA), when cigarettes were good for you, waxy candies were considered delicious, and kids were taught to read with Dick and Jane. Students of the decades popular culture will marvel at the insular innocence described, even as the world moved toward nuclear weapons and civil unrest. Bryson describes country fairs and fantastic ploys to maneuver into the tent to see the lady stripper, playing hookey, paper routes, church suppers, and more. His reminiscences will entertain a wide audience.Jackie Gropman, Chantilly Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.

Author: Johannes Oort File Type: pdf font face=DejaVu Sans, serifspan 14pxProceedings of the Fribourg-Utrecht Symposium of the International Symposium Association of Manichaean Studiesspanfontp DejaVu Sans, serif 14pxManichaeism, once a gnostic world religion, soon spread to the Roman West. Here, the life and the work of the future (and, without doubt, most influential) Church Father Augustine (354-430) became inextricably connected with Manichaean teachings and practices. In view of the many new Manichaean texts in particular, it turns out that, without a thorough knowledge of the Religion of Light, Augustines theology and philosophy are hardly conceivable. This volume brings together the selected papers of the Fribourg-Utrecht symposium Augustine and Manichaeism in the Latin West, organized on behalf of the International Association of Manichaean Studies in Fribourg (Switzerland) in the summer of 1998. It contains a considerable number of contributions by leading authorities on the subject, focussing on the diffusion of Manis religion in the Latin West and on its impact upon St Augustine. Originally published in hardcover. p DejaVu Sans, serif 14px**