Add free shipping to your order with these great books
The Smithsonian Institution - Gore Vidal

The Smithsonian Institution

By: Gore Vidal

Hardcover | 1 March 1998

Sorry, the book that you are looking for is not available right now.

We did a search for other books with a similar title, however there were no matches. You can try selecting from a similar category, click on the author's name, or use the search box above to find your book.

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.
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.

You Can Find This Book In

More in Modern & Contemporary Fiction

Blue Sisters : Our June Book of the Month - Coco Mellors

RRP $34.99

$19.95

43%
OFF
Why Do Horses Run? - Cameron Stewart

RRP $32.99

$26.95

18%
OFF
Juice : The New Novel - Tim Winton

RRP $49.99

$38.75

22%
OFF
Pheasants Nest - Louise Milligan

RRP $32.99

$26.95

18%
OFF
Mind Games - Nora Roberts

Paperback

RRP $34.99

$28.50

19%
OFF
Caledonian Road - Andrew O'Hagan

RRP $34.99

$28.50

19%
OFF
Table For Two - Amor Towles

Paperback

RRP $34.99

$28.50

19%
OFF
The Work : Our April Book of the Month - Bri Lee

RRP $32.99

$24.35

26%
OFF
My Favourite Mistake - Marian Keyes

RRP $34.99

$19.95

43%
OFF
Storm Child : Cyrus Haven : Book 4 - Michael Robotham

RRP $32.99

$19.95

40%
OFF
Lies and Weddings - Kevin Kwan

RRP $34.99

$28.50

19%
OFF
Kind of, Sort of, Maybe, But Probably Not - Imbi Neeme

RRP $34.99

$28.50

19%
OFF
Funny Story : The New 2024 novel from the author of Happy Place - Emily Henry
The Cryptic Clue : A Tea Ladies Mystery - Amanda Hampson

RRP $34.99

$19.95

43%
OFF
Good Material - Dolly Alderton

Paperback

RRP $34.99

$28.50

19%
OFF

This product is categorised by