Come travel back to a different but vaguely familiar world. Journey to a time when inflation barely existed, gasoline was cheap, cars had big gas-guzzling engines, and people almost never locked their front doors. Written in the first person, An Innocent Man follows the life and time of Edgar Rice Baker from his childhood as he encounters all of the trappings, joys, and nuances of the Baby Boomer years. It was an age of innocence, when kids walked to school, when beer and liquor were the worst things your kids could get in to, and when getting a drivers license and a set of wheels (where the heater worked and the engine ran) were the most important first steps in transitioning to adulthood. If you are over fifty, do you remember the good old days? Those were happy days of wine and roses, when life was simpler, and we all were more innocent. An Innocent Man transports us back to the fifties and sixtiesfor a nostalgic walk down the primrose lane.

Staying Alive is the sequel to An Innocent Man—The Life and Times of an American Baby Boomer. The first book explored growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. Staying Alive continues the adventure into the serendipitous 1970s. The same characters we enjoyed so much in An Innocent Man return and try to take the great leap from late adolescence into early adulthood. Follow our baby boomers as they struggle to survive college, avoid or cope with the Vietnam War, and eventually join mainstream society. Watch these reckless students try to turn themselves into budding professionals; struggle with marriage, child-rearing, and divorce; and try to survive the ups and downs of the volatile 1970s. Totally submerged in their own lives and interests, they still can't avoid the impacts of multiple wars, two oil embargos, rampant inflation, on-again off-again recession, and other world and life-changing events. Follow Ed Baker's efforts to just keep "staying alive," John Fitzmorris's transition from Vietnam to "a normal life," Johnny Latella's desire to keep scoring—on and off the athletic field, Jerry Prinz's simple desire to succeed in business, and Jack Fitzhugh's tenacious struggle to turn bad luck into good. Will they survive the gyrating 1970s, and can they do it alone, or does friendship really make a difference?

From ration book to Facebook

Soviet Baby Boomers traces the collapse of the Soviet Union and the transformation of Russia into a modern, highly literate, urban society through the life stories of the country's first post-World War II, Cold War generation. Illuminating a critical generation of people who had remained largely faceless up until now, the book reveals what it meant to "live Soviet" during the twilight of the Soviet empire.

From one of the world's most beloved writers and New York Times bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods and The Body, a vivid, nostalgic, and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the 1950s. Bill 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 native city in the 1950s in all its transcendent normality—a life at once completely familiar to us all and as far away and unreachable as another galaxy. It was, he reminds us, a happy time, when automobiles and televisions and appliances (not to mention nuclear weapons) grew larger and more numerous with each passing year, and DDT, cigarettes, and the fallout from atmospheric testing were considered harmless or even good for you. He brings us into the life of his loving but eccentric family, including affectionate portraits of his father, a gifted sportswriter for the local paper and dedicated practitioner of isometric exercises, and of his mother, whose job as the home furnishing editor for the same paper left her little time for practicing the domestic arts at home. The many readers of Bill Bryson’s earlier classic, A Walk in the Woods, will greet the reappearance in these pages of the immortal Stephen Katz, seen hijacking literally boxcar loads of beer. He is joined in the Bryson gallery of immortal characters by the demonically clever Willoughby brothers, who apply their scientific skills and can-do attitude to gleefully destructive ends. Warm and laugh-out-loud funny, and full of his inimitable, pitch-perfect observations, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is as wondrous a book as Bill Bryson has ever written. It will enchant anyone who has ever been young.

This first volume of Jon Alexander Young's new trilogy A Baby Boomer's Last Stand: A True Story of a Novel Life from Truman to Trump, is an insightful biography of an entrepreneur that millions of people probably thought they knew, after having seen him onstage or appearing in all forms of the media for the past fifty years, but actually never really knew at all.Throughout the last half of the twentieth century, this baby boomer was pioneer in many cultural changes that occurred in America during that time while also trying to show people how to have fun....at least for a while.During his unique and different career choices as an editor and publisher of a ground breaking national newspaper; one of America' s first nightclub and disco promoters; an award winning songwriter and theatrical producer; to a "sometimes" rock star and even well-known gambler and poker player; this baby boomer crossed paths and partied with hundreds of world famous entertainers and celebrities, politicians, sports legends, rock stars, and even some notorious mobsters. But most never saw any connections between those aspects of his life when they may have met him, because it all depended on what name he was using at the time.These volumes of books are more than the typical sex, drugs and rock and roll story, but are a very personal and detailed recollection of the funny, crazy, hedonistic, dramatic and fateful decisions that many may associate with their own personal journeys during those times.From Las Vegas, Hollywood and Beverly Hills, to eventually almost every corner of the United States (and sometimes the world), this journey should bring smiles to those who remember the people, places, events, and especially the music of the baby boomer era.The reader can experience "walking in the shoes" of somebody who some people may condemn today, but also somebody who once was looked at with envy before it became too "politically incorrect" to do so.From Truman to Trump was a long journey for most baby boomers and it all starts here.

"Baby Boomers (and I confess I am one): prepare to squirm and shake your increasingly arthritic little fists. For here comes essayist Helen Andrews."--Terry Castle With two recessions and a botched pandemic under their belt, the Boomers are their children's favorite punching bag. But is the hatred justified? Is the destruction left in their wake their fault or simply the luck of the generational draw? In Boomers, essayist Helen Andrews addresses the Boomer legacy with scrupulous fairness and biting wit. Following the model of Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians, she profiles six of the Boomers' brightest and best. She shows how Steve Jobs tried to liberate everyone's inner rebel but unleashed our stultifying digital world of social media and the gig economy. How Aaron Sorkin played pied piper to a generation of idealistic wonks. How Camille Paglia corrupted academia while trying to save it. How Jeffrey Sachs, Al Sharpton, and Sonya Sotomayor wanted to empower the oppressed but ended up empowering new oppressors. Ranging far beyond the usual Beatles and Bill Clinton clichés, Andrews shows how these six Boomers' effect on the world has been tragically and often ironically contrary to their intentions. She reveals the essence of Boomerness: they tried to liberate us, and instead of freedom they left behind chaos.