Sarah Vowell
Paperback | Pages: 258 pages Rating: 3.97 | 39742 Users | 3779 Reviews
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| Original Title: | Assassination Vacation |
| ISBN: | 074326004X (ISBN13: 9780743260046) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, Edwin Booth, Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley, James A. Garfield, Charles Guiteau, Leon Czolgosz, Robert Todd Lincoln |
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Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other—a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage. From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue—it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and—the author's favorite— historical tourism. Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are all kinds of lighter diversions along the way into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult.Specify Out Of Books Assassination Vacation
| Title | : | Assassination Vacation |
| Author | : | Sarah Vowell |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 258 pages |
| Published | : | 2006 by Simon Schuster (first published March 29th 2005) |
| Categories | : | Nonfiction. History. Humor. Travel. Writing. Essays. Audiobook. Autobiography. Memoir |
Rating Out Of Books Assassination Vacation
Ratings: 3.97 From 39742 Users | 3779 ReviewsAppraise Out Of Books Assassination Vacation
Vowell's blend of humor, travelogue, and history works for me. I regularly chuckle and "oooh, interesting" when I read her work. Assassination Vacation was engaging and fun. In her signature style, Vowell delves into the assassination plots (and the assassins) for three US presidents: Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley - all in the latter-half of the 19th-century. Lincoln's assassination (expectedly) gets the largest page count, but it includes some interesting historical notes - and some veryI picked this book up as a recommendation from Strand in Manhattan. Not knowing what to expect, I was all at once pleasantly surprised and supremely disappointed. To me, the biggest thing that jumps out about this author's style is that she is the Chuck Klosterman of political history. The plot follows the author through road trips and vacations to various spots of historical significance and her stories are advanced through a combination of her interactions with the everyday people there and
Ugh! Sarah Vowell, you annoy the hell out of me, on This American Life and in this book. I always think, "that would be totally funny if that happened to me" but her writing is never sufficient enough to translate it to the page. She's just not a good storyteller--she wants to be David Sedaris but she can't seem to pull it off. I also can't stand when people go on about how so-called nerdy they are when you know they secretly relish being weird and quirky. I have a friend that confuses her with
In every creative writing program, an insanely big deal is made of Voicediscovering a Voice, having a Voice, having a unique Voice, maintaining your unique Voice, I cant follow the story but oh that Voice, yes its misogyny but what a Voice!The concept of voice is another in the long list of writing program sillynesses (others: science fiction isnt legitimate writing, its not O.K. to admit influence from well-known writers, and the word poignant means something). But there is no doubt that having
Theres something about the way Sarah Vowell writes about history that brings it to life for me. Probably because theres something about the way that Sarah Vowell writes about people, and history is made of people. It often doesnt feel that way. (Ironically, theres a section in here where she tells a story about a time where she ended up yelling at some guy in a supermarket about how the only time it would be interesting to live through history would be if you were there when they discovered the
Sarah Vowell, will you marry me?I liked The Partly Cloud Patriot, but I loved Assassination Vacation. Vowell's pilgrimage to sites associated with the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley struck so many cords with me it is hard to know where to begin. First, I learned a ton. I knew a lot of what she mentioned about the Lincoln assassination (though by no means all of it), but really, does anybody know much about Garfield or McKinley? I knew McKinley's assassin was somehow
A quirky look at three assassinations; Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley(why no Kennedy?) as the author travels around to various locations related to each event. Vowell uses humor(dry to sardonic)with splashes of historical anecdotes in what I would consider more essay than history. Half the book is spent on Lincoln, Booth and his conspirators with stops at multiple locations including the Mudd home(which is apparently still difficult to find) and Fort Jefferson in Florida where the conspirators
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