Bill Bryson
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
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Transworld Publishers
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Автор: Bill Bryson Издательство: Transworld Publishers, 2007 |
DOC, 416 страниц, 1.00 МБ
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Some say that the first hint that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came when his mother sent him to school in lime-green Capri pants. Others think it all started with 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 his deeply funny new memoir, he travels back in time to explore the ordinary kid he once was, and the curious world of 1950s America. It was a happy time, when almost everything was good for you, including DDT, cigarettes and nuclear fallout. This is a book about growing up in a specific time and place. But in Bryson’s hands, it becomes everyone’s story, one that will speak volumes – especially to anyone who has ever been young.
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1506
delovar
04 июля 2008
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Made In America
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Transworld Publishers
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Автор: Bill Bryson Издательство: Transworld Publishers, 1998 |
PDF, 496 страниц, 14.88 МБ
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An entertaining, anecdotal look at the origins of language and ideas in the USA. Bryson explains why two bicycle repairmen from Ohio succeeded in mastering manned flight, why the assassination of President Garfield led to the invention of air conditioning, and many other improbable but true facts.
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1788
neptun
28 июня 2009
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Neither Here, Nor There
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Transworld Publishers
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Автор: Bill Bryson Издательство: Transworld Publishers, 1998 |
DjVu, 304 страницы, 12.16 МБ
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«In «Neither Here nor There» Bill Bryson brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia. Fluent in, oh, at least one language, he retraces his travels as a student 20 years before. Whether braving the homicidal motorists of Paris, being robbed by gypsies in Florence, attempting not to order tripe and eyeballs in a German restaurant, window-shopping in the sex shops of the Reeperbahn or disputing his hotel bill in Copenhagen, Bryson takes in the sights, dissects the culture and illuminates each place and person with his hilariously caustic observations. He even goes to Liechtenstein.»
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1096
stalker1965
15 июля 2009
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Notes From A Big Country
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Transworld Publishers
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Автор: Bill Bryson Издательство: Transworld Publishers, 1999 |
DjVu, 448 страниц, 17.92 МБ
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«Des Moines, Iowa born writer Bryson's first success was the travel book «The Lost Continent». After living in England for several years, he wanted to go back to the USA to find the perfect little US town of his past, he lovingly called Amalgam. More travel books followed, in the form of «Neither Here Nor There» (where he travels through Europe), «Notes From A Small Island» (where he travels around the United Kingdom, before returning back with his to the USA to live there for good) and «A Walk In The Woods» (where he walks the Appalachian trail). After moving back to the States, Bryson started to write a column for «The Mail on Sunday Night and Day» magazine. This is a collection of these column entries. Bryson writes about everything from everyday chores, to sueing people, the beach, TV, movies, air conditioners, college, Americana, injury dangers, wasting resources and holiday seasons.»
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1616
vtormai
13 августа 2009
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Notes From A Small Island
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Transworld Publishers
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Автор: Bill Bryson Издательство: Transworld Publishers, 1996 |
PDF, 259 страниц, 7.77 МБ
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«After nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson, the acclaimed author of such bestsellers as «The Mother Tongue» and «Made in America», decided it was time to move back to the United States for a while. This was partly to let his wife and kids experience life in Bryson's homeland — and partly because he had read that 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another. It was thus clear to him that his people needed him. But before leaving his much-loved home in North Yorkshire, Bryson insisted on taking one last trip around Britain, a sort of valedictory tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home. His aim was to take stock of modern-day Britain, and to analyze what he loved so much about a country that had produced Marmite, zebra crossings, and place names like Farleigh Wallop, Titsey, and Shellow Bowells. With wit and irreverence, Bill Bryson presents the ludicrous and the endearing in equal measure. The result is a social commentary that conveys the true glory of Britain.»
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932
archik
10 октрября 2009
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A Walk In The Woods
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Transworld Publishers
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Автор: Bill Bryson Издательство: Transworld Publishers, 1998 |
PDF, 350 страниц, 10.50 МБ
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«From the author of «Notes from a Small Island» and «The Lost Continent» comes this humorous report on his walk along the Appalachian Trail. The Trail is the longest continuous footpath in the world, and it snakes through some of the wildest and most spectacular landscapes in America.»
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1261
admin
20 декабря 2009
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Bill Bryson African Diary
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Transworld Publishers
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Автор: Bill Bryson Издательство: Transworld Publishers, 2002 |
PDF, 64 страницы, 1.92 МБ
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«Bill Bryson goes to Kenya at the invitation of CARE International, the charity dedicated to working with local communities to eradicate poverty around the world. Kenya, generally regarded as the cradle of mankind, is a land of contrasts, with famous game reserves, stunning landscapes, and a vibrant cultural tradition. It also provides plenty to worry a traveller like Bill Bryson, fixated as he is on the dangers posed by snakes, insects and large predators. But on a more sober note, it is a country that shares many serious human and environmental problems with the rest of Africa: refugees, AIDS, drought and grinding poverty. Travelling around the country, Bryson casts his inimitable eye on a continent new to him, and the resultant diary, though short in length, contains the trademark Bryson stamp of wry observation and curious insight. All the author's royalties from «Bill Bryson's African Diary», as well as all profits, will go to CARE International.»
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231
apollon7777777
10 декабря 2009
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The Lost Continent
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Transworld Publishers
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Автор: Bill Bryson Издательство: Transworld Publishers, 1999 |
DOC, 416 страниц, 1.00 МБ
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'I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.' And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England, he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of trim and sunny place where the films of his youth were set. Instead, his search led him to Anywhere, USA; a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by lookalike people with a penchant for synthetic fibres. Travelling around thirty-eight of the lower states — united only in their mind-numbingly dreary uniformity — he discovered a continent that was doubly lost; lost to itself because blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a stranger in his own land. The Lost Continent is a classic of travel literature — hilariously, stomach-achingly funny, yet tinged with heartache — and the book that first staked Bill Bryson's claim as the most beloved writer of his generation.
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1500
delovar
16 марта 2009
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Mother Tongue: The Story of the English Language
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Penguin Group
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Автор: Bill Bryson Издательство: Penguin Group, 2009 |
PDF, 288 страниц, 8.64 МБ
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'More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to...' Only Bill Bryson could make a book about the English language so entertaining. With his boundless enthusiasm and restless eye for the absurd, this is his astonishing tour of English. From its mongrel origins to its status as the world's most-spoken tongue; its apparent simplicity to its deceptive complexity; its vibrant swearing to its uncertain spelling and pronunciation, Bryson covers all this as well as the many curious eccentricities that make it as maddening to learn as it is flexible to use. Bill Bryson's classic Mother Tongue is a highly readable and hilarious tale of how English came to be the world's language.
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1044
vitalysev
14 сентября 2014
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Icons of England
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Transworld Publishers
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Автор: Bill Bryson Издательство: Transworld Publishers, 2010 |
DOC, 368 страниц, 1.00 МБ
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This is a hymn to what makes England, especially the English countryside, so special, in a collection of passionate, eclectic and thought-provoking pieces. It includes Bill Bryson on seaside piers, Michael Palin on crags, Eric Clapton on Newlands Corner, Bryan Ferry on Penshaw Monument, Sebastian Faulks on pub signs, Kate Adie on deer parks, Kevin Spacey on canal boats, Gavin Pretor-Pinney on clouds, Richard Mabey on marshland, Simon Jenkins on English country houses, John Sergeant on Great Tew, Benjamin Zephaniah on the Malvern Hills, Joan Bakewell on estuaries, Antony Beevor on the north downs in Kent, Libby Purves on Harbour Walls, Jonathan Dimbleby on the beach at West Wittering, and many more.
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1334
lubacha
10 сентября 2015
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The Complete Notes
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Transworld Publishers
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Автор: Bill Bryson Издательство: Transworld Publishers, 2010 |
DjVu, 544 страницы, 21.76 МБ
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«This work combines two of Bill Bryson's best-loved books and demonstrates his take on life — from either side of the pond. The books, «Notes from a Small Island» and «Notes From a Big Country», went on to become major bestsellers. «The Complete Notes» combines these two popular books into one volume. Written in the form of bite-sized essays, both books are gently humorous as they highlight the idiosyncracies of the USA and Great Britain.»
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1973
garun-al-rashid
23 декабря 2012
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At Home
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Transworld Publishers
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Автор: Bill Bryson Издательство: Transworld Publishers, 2011 |
PDF, 259 страниц, 7.77 МБ
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In At Home, Bill Bryson applies the same irrepressible curiosity, irresistible wit, stylish prose and masterful storytelling that made A Short History of Nearly Everything one of the most lauded books of the last decade, and delivers one of the most entertaining and illuminating books ever written about the history of the way we live. Bill Bryson was struck one day by the thought that we devote a lot more time to studying the battles and wars of history than to considering what history really consists of: centuries of people quietly going about their daily business — eating, sleeping and merely endeavouring to get more comfortable. And that most of the key discoveries for humankind can be found in the very fabric of the houses in which we live.This inspired him to start a journey around his own house, an old rectory in Norfolk, wandering from room to room considering how the ordinary things in life came to be. Along the way he did a prodigious amount of research on the history of anything and everything, from architecture to electricity, from food preservation to epidemics, from the spice trade to the Eiffel Tower, from crinolines to toilets; and on the brilliant, creative and often eccentric minds behind them. And he discovered that, although there may seem to be nothing as unremarkable as our domestic lives, there is a huge amount of history, interest and excitement — and even a little danger — lurking in the corners of every home.
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939
archik
12 марта 2014
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