Sarah VowellBesprekingen

Always enjoy Sarah vowell. Funny & informative, would've liked more Lafayette

I enjoy sarah vowell , particularly when she is ranting (and when is she not.)
Only someone who really cares could get that angry
would not appeal, I think, to some one of differing views, though it is an interesting overview of mid90's culture

I quite enjoyed it, though I think a conservative republican might find the asides a bit off putting.
humorous and informative

A fun and informative trip to sites of people who took part in the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield and others. Filled with trivia and fun anecdotes.

(2002)A series of essays written after the 9-11 tragedy come from Sarah's heart as she explores her patriotism and growing up in America. Dry humor and insight make this a fun read.School Library Journal:These essays and commentaries from Vowell's NPR radio appearances and other sources are curmudgeonly, critical, liberal, and, often, laugh-out-loud funny. The commentator, a self-described history nerd, wanders across the spectrum of American life from the theme-park feeling of Salem, MA, where she purchased a Witch's Crossing shot glass, to the glories of Carlsbad Caverns and the Underground Luncheonette. She belongs to a political listserv that was aghast at the results of the 2000 election, yet, joining several of the members on a road trip to protest the Inauguration, she ended up weeping as she sang the "Star-Spangled Banner." Her commitment to America and her dismay about the current direction of the government, both before and after September 11, are strongly stated, but her wit and slightly quirky outlook make reading her book a pleasure. Teens, regardless of their political leanings, will enjoy the pop-culture connections and even learn some history while smiling at her delivery. This title will work well for assignments on essay writing and even provide material for monologues.

(2005)Very good. Sarah relates her obsession with Presidential assassinations and the historical sites and relics that she must visit to satisfy her obsession.

funny

What happened to the old Vowell charm? I wanted to like this, but it was dull and hard to follow. The only parts I perked up for were the ones I'd already heard her read on the radio.

On the plus side, I was very intrigued by Roger Williams, who believed in the rights of Native Americans and the separation of church and state before it was popular.

I was really impressed by Sarah Vowell. I think I learned more about American history from her book than I did in any of my high school classes. And I was LOLing like crazy.

This hit my sweet spot of "nonfiction audio that listens like public radio."

An insightful, drily humorous work of popular nonfiction, this book is beautifully read by Vowell (with lots of guest voice actor talent) and was the perfect brain candy to keep me entertained through a long roadtrip.

I enjoyed it but it wasn't anywhere as good as her previous books. Missing lot of her off beat humor that I have come to love.

I love sarah vowel, but this book didn't have the scope I expected.

Vowel's smart, engaging, funny book [b:Assassination Vacation|422664|Assassination Vacation|Sarah Vowell|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174601492s/422664.jpg|824686](audio) made the miles melt away as I drove to grad classes. I chose this title as a birthday gift when my sister-in-law said a) she loves words and b) history interests her. Seems a perfect match. I'm reading it first just to be sure of what I'm giving.

So far so good. A clever essayist and engaging reader, Vowel manages to cram heaps of historical facts and humor into her well researched travelogue of presidential assassins' and their marks.

This is really a political book, with Democrats being “good” and Republicans being “bad.” She compares herself to Rosa Parks. She spends several pages fawning over the television show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

Better to spend your precious reading time somewhere else.

Sarah Vowell seems like the kind of author who would be good for the buddy read project for my dad and me -- the trick was finding a book hers neither of us had read already. And since better understanding the legacy of the Civil War and how it still haunts America today was the original motivation for our read-alongs, going back further to investigate our Puritan origins seemed like right on theme.

This was a good pick, and fascinating, especially along "it was ever thus" lines -- just that it seems to be built in to the human condition to argue about doctrine and splinter and faction -- or is that just the legacy we've inherited here in the U.S. from the Puritans and we THINK it is universal?

We spent a lot of our time really trying to wrap our heads around Calvinism and what the motivation is for doing ANYTHING if your salvation/damnation is already predetermined and there is nothing you can do about it?

The back-and-forth shifting in time as various threads of the story are followed and then backtracking to another was a little more bewildering/frustrating in this book than in some of Vowell's others -- where many readers could be expected to have SOME grasp of the timeline to begin with.

Overall a very worthwhile read.

I bought this book because I was heading to New England and New York for a month and I thought it would be good to get a sense of the history of the place. Of course I didn't find time to read the book until six months after that trip, but I was glad that I had been there and had some idea of the geography. It did exactly what I hoped it would - provided one quirky perspective on the first days of one of the early settlements of America by Europeans. I'm always suspicious of the stories countries tell themselves about how their culture evolved, and this did tend to make a few overly bold leaps at times, but it has value as much for its ability to reveal how a certain type of US American views their culture today. The writing is light and breezy and occasionally draws a laugh or touches the heart.

As a huge fan of Sarah Vowell's work on NPR, it was pretty much a given that I would enjoy her book. This is a witty account of her pilgramage to sites of importance to the assassination of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. The only thing that was surprising, and a little unsettling, was her injection of current politics into the narrative. Don't get me wrong, I definitely share her views, but they distracted from the flow of the story. Overall, it's a fun and interesting book.

Sarah Vowell comes across as fairly charming. But in this book, her "pop history" approach winds up feeling a little scatter-shot. Still, for example, her digressions into American and missionary relationships with the Cherokee became more understandable when I realized this book isn't about the Hawaiian people. It's about the missionaries who traveled to the islands, what they did there, and how they prepared the islands culturally and politically for annexation. She also argues that the annexation was in character with the US's previous expansion into North America and 1898 widespread power consolidation as spoils of the Spanish-American War (the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Cuba--or at least Guantanamo Bay).

She tries to portray the missionaries as both an incursion of cultural xenophobes and simultaneously as true believers who cared about the well-being of the Hawaiians. As an aspiring educator, I was fascinated to learn how the missionaries learned to speak Hawaiian, devised a system for writing it down, and taught Hawaiians to read--reaching a 75% literacy level in two generations, outdistancing the US's reading ability. Of course, this was all in service of getting printing presses working putting out Hawaiian translations of the Bible (done by eight ministers over 15 years, directly from the Hebrew...amazing!) I didn't think I could find missionaries sympathetic, but I sort of did by the end.

So I learned a lot more details of people and places (stuff I'd carefully ignored in middle school), and there's a lengthy bibliography in the back. Although it did not satisfy me as much as I'd like, it did leave me hungry for more history about our islands. It's a quick and easy read, and I hope it inspires others to dig in and understand more.

I enjoyed reading and learning. I don't have much to add to that. I see that I didn't pick the most archetypal Vowell to start off with, but that just leaves me more to read.
I will say that it took living in the (very) south Pacific to make me realize my mental image of Hawaii was purely that of modern white transplants. I mean I knew it, I just didn't think about it consciously. So I'm glad to have a little more structured knowledge of that process to add to my knowledge of pacific cultures.

While exhibiting some of the humorous flair that she used to great success in ASSASSINATION VACATION, Vowell comes off as a bit preachy in this book. While she holds no party as blameless in this history of 19th-century Hawaii, her Cherokee background (which she inserts into the narrative) and her clear disdain of New England religion are evident in her bias throughout. Her bias even undercuts the very people that she seeks to lift up - native Hawaiians - by denying them any agency in their post-contact history (everything done in Hawaii was at the fault of either missionaries, sailors, or businessmen, with Hawaiians acting the part of dutiful servants to whichever party Vowell chooses to lay blame).

Wouldn't recommend this book, as Vowell's stream-of-consciousness, history/travelogue style really only works when there is humor and wit present in sizable amounts. If you're looking for a good book by the author, I would recommend ASSASSINATION VACATION instead.

A well-written and enjoyable romp through the history of presidential assassinations, as well as a nice travelogue that ties the history of these events to the places they happened and the memorials established because of them. The author has a broad range of knowledge, which is used brilliantly to relate usually unconnected events, both past and present. While I disagree with the author on certain ideological points, I still enjoyed myself - and learned a little, too.

Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation examines the lives, presidencies, and assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, and William McKinley as well as the people in their lives and their actual assassins, John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau, and Leon Czolgosz. She writes in the style of a travelogue, visiting places relevant to the presidents, their assassins, and the sites of the assassinations themselves. These take her to Illinois, throughout Washington, D.C., to Mentor, OH, to Buffalo, NY, throughout areas in Virginia and Maryland, as far away as Dry Tortugas National Park and as close at home as her Oneida teapot. Through it all, she examines the natures of these men and studies their motivations either to seek the presidency or to remove the president. Finally, she concludes with a study of Robert Todd Lincoln, who was unfortunate to either be related to one of the victims, witness one of the assassinations, or just be entering the city when and where another assassination occurred.

Vowell’s dry wit comes through, particularly as she wrote in the shadow of the early days of the Iraq War and cannot help but draw political comparisons to other times of political and military turmoil in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For myself, I was particularly interested as I had either visited several of the locations in the past – the McKinley Shooting Rock, the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site, Ford’s Theatre, the White House, the Seward House Museum, and more – or was passing through the areas relevant to James Garfield as I read this book, taking the opportunity to visit the President Garfield Memorial and James A. Garfield National Historic Site. Those with an interest in history, especially those who are excited to stop and read an historic plaque or visit the site of an historic event, will find this a particularly enjoyable read.½

I don't remember how we ended up making the decision to choose this for family read aloud time, but somehow we did. I only ended up regretting it a little bit when we got to the bit about the Christian polygamist sex cult.

Literally a trip to sites associated with American assassinations -- about not just history, but how we memorialize and consume that history -- from folklore to museum exhibits to musical theater. Filled with the kind of contagious anecdotes you won't be able to stop yourself repeating to those around you.

Clear, well-read, and a little quirky. So, a typical Vowell book.

Quite entertaining. I listened to the audible book which is read by the author. I really like books read by the author! In addition, there are famous actors who play various characters such as Lafayette, Washington, and Jefferson. Biggest takeaway was how involved France was in helping us win the war. Of course there’s Lafayette, but so much more! Giving it four stars because there is quite a bit of left-leaning commentary throughout the book. It was mostly funny and I caught myself laughing at times, but sometimes it was a little annoying.