Items related to The Smithsonian Institution - A Novel
Good Friday, 1939, and T., a sixteen-year-old schoolboy, arrives at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. The museum is closed, but T. manages to slip in, and it would appear that somehow, he is expected. An old man, Bentsen, shows him around, and T. realises that all is not as it seems. As he goes to examine a Native American exhibit, he is drawn magically into the nineteenth-century world of a reservation of Sioux Indians. They like what they see of T. and immediately get the pot boiling. T. is forced to take refuge in the tent of a young Squaw. They become lovers, and she helps him to escape back to the safety of the Smithsonian.
Back with Bentsen, T. explores the Smithsonian further and begins to fathom the mysteries of time travel. The Smithsonian scientists have discovered how to get back to the past, but still don't know how to travel to the future. T. puts his brilliant mathematical brain to the problem. However, given a glimpse into the future, T. sees his own untimely death, and becomes determined to prevent the outbreak of WWII...
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Review:
Falling somewhere between the realms of Henry Adams and all of Monty Python... (Jay McInerny)
This is a jeu d'esprit, an iridescent bubble of a book (SUNDAY TIMES)
America's best living novelist (Allan Massie)
Vidal's combination of learning, wit and disdain gets into your blood. He can change the way you think - the only definition of a great writer which makes sense (OBSERVER)
Book Description:
This is a jeu d'esprit, an iridescent bubble of a book (SUNDAY TIMES)
America's best living novelist (Allan Massie)
Vidal's combination of learning, wit and disdain gets into your blood. He can change the way you think - the only definition of a great writer which makes sense (OBSERVER)
*A sparkling, playful and, at its core, deeply moving novel 'about' the way history is made.
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- PublisherLittle, Brown
- Publication date1998
- ISBN 10 0316645869
- ISBN 13 9780316645867
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages264
- Rating
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The Smithsonian Institution - A Novel
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. The Smithsonian Institution - A Novel This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 7719-9780316645867
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 6545-9780316645867
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THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.
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The Smithsonian Institution - A Novel
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The Smithsonian Institution - A Novel
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Good. Some shelf wear, outer side edges have not been sliced properly, otherwise book content is in very good readable condition. Seller Inventory # 020561-4
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The Smithsonian Institution: A Novel
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(1998)
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Book Description Hard Cover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First UK Edition. 260 pages. Fore-edge uncut. Cloth boards in dust-jacket which is slightly faded at the spine. Size: 8vo. Seller Inventory # 023988
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The Smithsonian Institution
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Book Description Hard Cover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition. 260 pages. 450 grams. This book is in very good unmarked condition. The dust jacket is in very good condition with minimal wear. Dust jacket condition preserved within new clear plastic removable non-adhesive protective covering. 'It's Good Friday 1939, and a teenage math prodigy from St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., is mysteriously summoned to the Smithsonian Institution, where a crash program to develop the atomic bomb is being conducted in the basement. Someone is also fooling around with the space-time continuum, and the preternaturally gifted teenager turns out to hold the key to both the secrets of nuclear fission and breakthroughs in the fourth dimension. In the subterranean laboratory, he brainstorms with Robert Oppenheimer and other scientists who will soon be at Los Alamos. Meanwhile, upstairs, the displays in the museum come to life after hours, and an adventurous First Lady from the inaugural-gowns exhibit takes it upon herself to show him the sexual ropes. The Smithsonian Institution is one of what Gore Vidal has referred to as his "inventions" - novels like Myra Breckinridge and Duluth - but it also deals with the themes central to his historical novels, books such as Burr, 1876, and Lincoln. In fact, Abraham Lincoln - along with Charles Lindbergh, Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Einstein, Grover Cleveland, and Adolf Hitler - turns up here as the teenage narrator tries not only to make sense of history but to intervene in key events that shaped the twentieth century. Questions about political responsibility and personal sacrifice are deftly woven into a surreal narrative of quantum physics, string theory, clones, the sexual habits of Eskimos, and the domestic arrangements of various U.S. presidents. It's a Vidalian tour de force of comedy and allusion.' 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Quantity Available: 1. Category: Fiction, Modern First Editions.; ISBN: 0316645869. ISBN/EAN: 9780316645867. Pictures of this item not already displayed here available upon request. Inventory No: 001323. Seller Inventory # 001323
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Good. No Jacket. There are a couple of marks on the hardcover. Seller Inventory # 075081
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THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION A Novel
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Book Description Hardcover. First Edition; First Printing. Very Good+ in a Very Good+ dust jacket. First U. K. Edition. ; 8.90 X 6.22 X 1.02 inches; 240 pages. Seller Inventory # 57582
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