Bill Bryson's "The Thunderbolt Kid"

If you've ever wanted to step into the fascinating world of the 50's, pick up Bill Bryson's memoir, "The Thunderbolt Kid." There isn't anything too exciting about the book, he leads you around his life growing up in the 50's, a world of enormous wealth and prosperity for American's, considering the other industrial nations were busy rebuilding after the war. People were excited about atomic weapons, and space. Food was changing dramatically, with new flavors, and new chemicals to make the food better. Appliances were popping into kitchens at a quick pace. When a family would buy a refrigerator, it would be treated like they just bought a new car, the neighbors would stop by for a cold glass of ice tea. No wonder there was so much optimism in the 50's, so many new things were being created. From reading this book, I can't believe we don't all have gyro copters to fly to work in. There was an interesting anecdote in the book which stuck out, Rocket Mail. The USPS spent money developing a rocket which could deliver mail. It was not a practical idea, but we did it because, if we ever wanted to deliver mail via rocket, we could.

To check out more about Rocket Mail, follow this wiki link. I recommend this book to anyone seeking a break from philosophy texts, or anything from Joseph Smith.