-
The Smithsonian Institution
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch
- Length: 9 hrs and 30 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $26.17
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's Summary
It’s 1939, and a teenage math genius is mysteriously summoned to the Smithsonian Institution, where a crash program to develop the atomic bomb is being conducted in the basement. The boy turns out to hold the key to both the secrets of nuclear fission and breakthroughs in the time continuum. As he brainstorms with Robert Oppenheimer, he catches a glimpse of the coming war and becomes determined to ward off the cataclysm. In a race against time - and surrounded by figures from American history past and present, including Albert Einstein, Grover Cleveland, and Abraham Lincoln - he battles to save not just himself, but humanity.
Gore Vidal has written some of the finest and most inventive novels in modern times. Readers of such bestsellers as Burr, Lincoln, Duluth, and 1876 will revel in this, his latest foray into the American scene. A brilliant and vividly imaginative tale about some of the key events of the twentieth century, The Smithsonian Institution is a dramatic masterwork of comedy and allusion.
More from the same
What listeners say about The Smithsonian Institution
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
Creation
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 27 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cyrus Spitama, grandson of the prophet Zoroaster and lifelong friend of Xerxes, spent most of his life as Persian ambassador for the great king Darius. He traveled to India, where he discussed nirvana with Buddha, and to the warring states of Cathay, where he learned of Tao from Master Li and fished on the riverbank with Confucius. Now blind and aged in Athens - the Athens of Pericles, Sophocles, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Socrates - Cyrus recounts his days as he strives to resolve the fundamental questions that have guided his life’s journeys.
-
-
A Magnificent Tour de Force
- By Harry Haller on 01-31-20
By: Gore Vidal
-
Julian
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner, George Newbern, David de Vries, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great, was one of the brightest yet briefest lights in the history of the Roman Empire. A military genius on the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, a graceful and persuasive essayist, and a philosopher devoted to worshipping the gods of Hellenism, he became embroiled in a fierce intellectual war with Christianity that provoked his murder at the age of thirty-two, only four years into his brilliantly humane and compassionate reign.
-
-
Brilliant narration!
- By Abhishek Deepak on 10-23-19
By: Gore Vidal
-
Inventing a Nation
- Washington, Adams, Jefferson
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht, Gore Vidal
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volumes have been written about George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, but no previous work captures the intimate and vital details the way Inventing a Nation does. Vidal's consummate skill takes you into the minds and private rooms of these great men, illuminating their opinions of one another and their concerns about crafting a workable democracy.
-
-
Reader Beware: Mixed with a political agenda
- By Robert on 09-09-04
By: Gore Vidal
-
United States: Essays 1952-1992
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 60 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gore Vidal’s reputation as America’s finest essayist is an enduring one. This collection, chosen by the author from 40 years of work, contains about two-thirds of what he published in various magazines and journals. He has divided the essays into three categories, or states. State of the art covers literature, including novelists and critics, bestsellers, pieces on Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Suetonius, Nabakov, and Montaigne (a previosly uncollected essay from 1992).
-
-
wow
- By william on 11-06-20
By: Gore Vidal
-
Kalki
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Hope Day
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To satisfy a public that longs for a savior, Vidal’s eponymous hero of Kalki, born and bred in America’s Midwest, establishes himself in Nepal, puts out the word that he is the last incarnation of the god Vishnu, and predicts an imminent apocalypse meant to cleanse the planet.
-
-
Wrong reader
- By Gereg Jones Muller on 08-20-22
By: Gore Vidal
-
Burr
- A Novel (Narratives of Empire, Book 1)
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 21 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is an extraordinary portrait of one of the most complicated - and misunderstood - figures among the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. But he is determined to tell his own story, and he chooses to confide in a young New York City journalist. Burr is the first novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series.
-
-
Finally! Vidal's Great Take on the Life of Burr
- By John Norton on 06-12-19
By: Gore Vidal
-
Creation
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 27 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cyrus Spitama, grandson of the prophet Zoroaster and lifelong friend of Xerxes, spent most of his life as Persian ambassador for the great king Darius. He traveled to India, where he discussed nirvana with Buddha, and to the warring states of Cathay, where he learned of Tao from Master Li and fished on the riverbank with Confucius. Now blind and aged in Athens - the Athens of Pericles, Sophocles, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Socrates - Cyrus recounts his days as he strives to resolve the fundamental questions that have guided his life’s journeys.
-
-
A Magnificent Tour de Force
- By Harry Haller on 01-31-20
By: Gore Vidal
-
Julian
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner, George Newbern, David de Vries, and others
- Length: 20 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great, was one of the brightest yet briefest lights in the history of the Roman Empire. A military genius on the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, a graceful and persuasive essayist, and a philosopher devoted to worshipping the gods of Hellenism, he became embroiled in a fierce intellectual war with Christianity that provoked his murder at the age of thirty-two, only four years into his brilliantly humane and compassionate reign.
-
-
Brilliant narration!
- By Abhishek Deepak on 10-23-19
By: Gore Vidal
-
Inventing a Nation
- Washington, Adams, Jefferson
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht, Gore Vidal
- Length: 5 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volumes have been written about George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, but no previous work captures the intimate and vital details the way Inventing a Nation does. Vidal's consummate skill takes you into the minds and private rooms of these great men, illuminating their opinions of one another and their concerns about crafting a workable democracy.
-
-
Reader Beware: Mixed with a political agenda
- By Robert on 09-09-04
By: Gore Vidal
-
United States: Essays 1952-1992
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 60 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gore Vidal’s reputation as America’s finest essayist is an enduring one. This collection, chosen by the author from 40 years of work, contains about two-thirds of what he published in various magazines and journals. He has divided the essays into three categories, or states. State of the art covers literature, including novelists and critics, bestsellers, pieces on Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Suetonius, Nabakov, and Montaigne (a previosly uncollected essay from 1992).
-
-
wow
- By william on 11-06-20
By: Gore Vidal
-
Kalki
- A Novel
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Hope Day
- Length: 11 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To satisfy a public that longs for a savior, Vidal’s eponymous hero of Kalki, born and bred in America’s Midwest, establishes himself in Nepal, puts out the word that he is the last incarnation of the god Vishnu, and predicts an imminent apocalypse meant to cleanse the planet.
-
-
Wrong reader
- By Gereg Jones Muller on 08-20-22
By: Gore Vidal
-
Burr
- A Novel (Narratives of Empire, Book 1)
- By: Gore Vidal
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 21 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is an extraordinary portrait of one of the most complicated - and misunderstood - figures among the Founding Fathers. In 1804, while serving as vice president, Aaron Burr fought a duel with his political nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, and killed him. In 1807, he was arrested, tried, and acquitted of treason. In 1833, Burr is newly married, an aging statesman considered a monster by many. But he is determined to tell his own story, and he chooses to confide in a young New York City journalist. Burr is the first novel in Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire series.
-
-
Finally! Vidal's Great Take on the Life of Burr
- By John Norton on 06-12-19
By: Gore Vidal