Books, Biographies & Memoirs, Regional U.S., Midwest

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Bill Bryson
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
by Broadway (Paperback) (Release Date: 2007-09-25)

From one of the most beloved and bestselling authors in the English language, a vivid, nostalgic, and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the 1950sBill 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 ...

Bill Bryson
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
by Broadway (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2006-10-17)

From one of the most beloved and bestselling authors in the English language, a vivid, nostalgic, and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the 1950sBill 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 ...

Haven Kimmel
A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland Indiana (Today Show Book Club #3)
by Broadway (Paperback) (Release Date: 2002-09-03)

When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of three hundred people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period–people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards. Laced with fine storytelling, sharp wit, dead-on observations, and moments of sheer joy, Haven Kimmel's straight-shooting portrait of her childhood gives us a heroine who is wonderfully sweet and sly as she navigates the quirky adult world that surrounds Zippy.

Michael Perry
Population: 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time (Wisconsin)
by HarperCollins (Hardcover) (Release Date: 2002-10-08)

Welcome to New Auburn, Wisconsin (population: 485), where the local vigilante is a farmer's wife armed with a pistol and a Bible, the most senior member of the volunteer fire department is a cross-eyed butcher with one kidney and two ex-wives (both of whom work at the only gas station in town), and the back roads are haunted by the ghosts of children and farmers. Michael Perry loves this place. He grew up here, and now -- after a decade away -- he has returned.Unable to polka or repair his own pickup, his farm-boy hands gone soft after years of writing, Mike figures the best way to regain his credibility is to join the volunteer fire department. Against a backdrop of fires and tangled wrecks, bar fights and smelt feeds, he tells a frequently comic tale leavened with moments of heartbreaking delicacy and searing tragedy. Tracing his calls on a map in the little firehouse, he sees "a dense, benevolent web, spun one frantic zigzag at a time" from which the story of a tiny town ...

Reymundo Sanchez
My Bloody Life: The Making of a Latin King
by Chicago Review Press (Hardcover)

Haven Kimmel
She Got Up Off the Couch: And Other Heroic Acts from Mooreland, Indiana
by Free Press (Paperback)

Dennis Smith
Report from Engine Co. 82
by Highbridge Audio (CD) (Release Date: 2002-03-14)

Report from Engine Co. 82 is the story of one company of New York firefighters battling unimaginable death and destruction every day. Dennis Smith worked as a firefighter in the South Bronx of New York City, and the graphic detail and gripping prose of this firefighting classic drives the most important, accomplished, terrifying book ever published on firefighting. With over two million copies in print, this book struck a nerve within the nation when it was first published thirty years ago. In our troubled times, it gains even greater resonance for those trying to make sense of the deaths of so many New York firefighters on September 11 and for those inspired by the tireless work of firefighters and other rescue personnel in the aftermath of the destruction. Dennis Smith describes the bravery, heroism, camaraderie, and unflinching courage of New York's bravest, demonstrating how firefighters everywhere have become the most respected of American heroes.

Pamela Smith Hill
Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer's Life (South Dakota Biography)
by South Dakota State Historical Society (Paperback)

Adam Cohen, Elizabeth Taylor
American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley - His Battle for Chicago and the Nation
by Back Bay Books (Paperback)

Charles A. Lindbergh
The Spirit of St. Louis
by Minnesota Historical Society Press (Paperback)

Autobiography of Lindbergh's historic adventure piloting his single-engine plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, from New York to Paris on the first nonstop flight over the Atlantic Ocean in May 1927. "It was in this book, written over a period of seventeen years, that he tried to represent as accurately as he possibly could both the story and the meaning of his 1927 flight. In doing this, inevitably, he also told the reader who he was."--Reeve Lindbergh, "Introduction"

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