- Audio CD
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio; Abridged edition (Mar 29 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0743540050
- ISBN-13: 978-0743540056
- Product Dimensions: 14.7 x 12.7 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 181 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #525,436 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Offbeat and entertaining, this audio tour of the memorials, monuments and relics linked to the first three U.S. presidential assassinations features an impressive lineup of readers, including Conan O'Brien, Dave Eggers, Stephen King, Jon Stewart and, of course, Vowell herself, whose distinct voice and deadpan delivery will be familiar to fans of NPR's This American Life. Elements of that show are evident here, particularly in the way the music that accompanies the readings (scored by Michael Giacchino of The Incredibles) helps establish mood and heighten effect. Vowell handles most of the narration herself, with the guest narrators taking on specific roles. King, for example, voices the part of Abraham Lincoln. This approach works well most of the time, though it does make for some awkward shifts in tempo and voice. While Vowell's interplay with Eggers in the role of a tour guide sounds natural, her reenacted conversation with Catherine Keener as a museum curator seems stilted. Minor imperfections aside, however, this is a funny and expertly produced audiobook from a sharp social critic who wears her liberal heart on her sleeve.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–Vowell has a perspective on American history that is definitely funny. She visits museums, historic sites, statues, libraries, anything remotely relevant to successful presidential assassins, and a few of those not so successful. This is an amusing way to learn history, but it is also an unusual look at the interconnectedness of things. Robert Todd Lincoln, a.k.a. Jinxy McDeath, was present, or nearly so, at three assassinations–his father's, Garfield's, and McKinley's. To understand Garfield's assassin, the author spends time at the Oneida Colony in upstate New York, a religious commune that preached a combination of free love and the second coming, and connects it with Jonathan Edwards. She tracks the Lincoln conspirators through the process of plot and escape to hanging and imprisonment, even describing Dr. Mudd's enormous contribution when the plague hit the prison island of Dry Tortuga. Garfield's assassin was deeply involved in the redirection of the Republican Party after the Civil War, and McKinley's was an anarchist following, he thought, the tenets of Emma Goldman. There are family anecdotes and real scholarship in this quirky road trip. Teens will get an interesting view of one aspect of American history while picking up odd bits of information about a whole lot more. There is much to enjoy in this discursive yet somehow cohesive book.–Susan H. Woodcock, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
Going to Ford's Theatre to watch the play is like going to Hooters for the food. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Going to Ford's Theatre to watch the play is like going to Hooters for the food. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good read on many counts.,
By
This review is from: Assassination Vacation (Paperback)
Vowell's book is part travel literature, part history, and no small part macabre fascination on the part of the author. It is very very very reflexive, so Vowell rarely extricates her voice from her research. Happily, her voice is extremely funny and dry, which is perhaps just the right voice with which to be writing this book.Her research takes her on direct and digressive travels in America, to all and sundry people, places, and things related to three Presidential assasinations; those of Lincoln, McKinley, and Garfield. As a Canadian, I'd never really known anything at all about these men's deaths, except quite perfunctory Lincoln history. There was no NEED for me to know, either, I suppose. A little disclosure: my Master's thesis focused on secular pilgrimage. That is: spiritual journeys that aren't necessarily attached to an organized religion. So, like Jim Morrison's grave, or Graceland. I wish Vowell's book had been published before I wrote my thesis! I would have used it as a great source! Still, I was entertained and educated about many things besides the assasinations. And, to satisfy my academic bent, there were discussions of relics, sites, and pilgrims.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Gonzo History,
By
This review is from: Assassination Vacation (Paperback)
Quirky, weird, informative, sort of amusing. Probably best summed up as "gonzo travel history".Sarah lives up to her reputation as the "maddonna of americana" as she explores the character and environment of both the assassins and the American presidents they killed. Sarah has an almost eerie fascination with the subject matter. And she's really opiniated. It's Bill Bryson meets Hunter S. Thompson meets David McCullough meets Jon Stewart. You'll likely learn some stuff you haven't heard of before, like: the connection between the weird community in Oneida and the assassin of James Garfield; and the fact that Lincoln's son, known as "the presidential angel of death", was also around for a whopping two more presidential assassinations! Sarah gives a rich, textured look at the events and characters in question. Sarah retains the freedom to roam quite a bit and explore certain things at length. It will probably either drive you crazy or increase your interest in history. I'm not fully convinced I really "like" this book persay, but it certainly caught my attention and I'll at least admit that it was amusing and was worth the time.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.1 out of 5 stars (192 customer reviews) 121 of 138 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
If only Vowell wrote the texts....,
By Grant Barber - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Assassination Vacation (Hardcover)
I've never really gotten the whole idea behind "American Studies" in universities. I really did not enjoy history as a student. If only Sarah Vowell had written the texts or been the teacher. She is a history nerd, geek, whatever--she is brilliant, laugh out loud funny, and earnest all at the same time. Her take is on three presidents who were assasinated (the majority of the book describing Lincoln's life, assasination, and the lives of his assasins). This book is something of a departure from her previous two collections of esssays, which ranged over a wide variety of topics. This book is more focused, but Vowell's voice and wit are intact, even more entertaining than in previous volumes. I hope Vowell's next book tells us about Hollywood, animation, and her other passions on the heels of her performing a voice in The Incredibles. There has to be so much fodder for her droll observations there. Sedaris might be getting a little stale these days; Vowell certainly is not.
28 of 29 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
History, humanity, and humor,
By Mike "ahollowvoice" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Assassination Vacation (Hardcover)
I have read "Take the Cannoli" and am halfway through "The Partly Cloudy Patriot", I read these books because Assassination Vacation was the best book I've read by an uncelebrated author in my life. Sarah Vowell is witty and independent, she makes one feel a connection to her and a profound enlightened guilt at the loss of history.The assassinations of Lincoln, McKinley, and Garfield are the book's topic. But the true value of Vowell's Vacation is the wonderment of where we came from, and how men who shaped the world are remembered only by small bronze plaques that are at once unremarkable and intriguing. For any kid that was in AP or Honors US History this book will make you grin remembering the stories layed out on chalkboards that seemed so dull then, but Vowell gives them meaning and life. She is neurotic, patriotic, intelligent, witty, and alluring; in other words she is a perfect political writer. There is no paragraph that seems a waste of time. No story that isn't fascinating. You become a small child staring up at the Lincoln Memorial again, jaw on the floor, eyes wide staring at the man who saved the Union. And you feel a quiet drumming in your chest to do something about it, to make people remember what matters. 121 of 147 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
I'll buy a Vowell, Pat.,
By James Hiller - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Assassination Vacation (Hardcover)
Actually, two. Or maybe three. Or as many as I want! Sarah Vowell has produced a delightfully charming, witty, and introspective look at, of all topics, presidential assassination, in her new witty and evocative book "Assassination Vacation".Those of us who know Vowell from her numerous and witty appearances on the highly respected "This American Life" series know exactly what to expect when picking up a Vowell book: something interesting, funny, with pieces of introspection thrown in. She delivers her promise in her new tome. Vowell, a self-avowed history nut, decides to drag certain hapless aquaintances around the places associated with three presidential assassinations: Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. Along the way, she shares information she has researched or learned, which makes this book one of her more scholarly, if that word could ever be applied here. She actually makes history more palpable, more real for people to digest in an entertaining way. How many of us would desire reading a book about the famed assassin Leon Cgolgosz? Put Vowell's name on the cover, slap a salty title on the book, and bang, we're lining up book-in-hand to purchase it. (Oh, and by the way, Vowell finally deciphers the mystery of pronouncing Cgolgosz, which is.... is... hmmm, I suddenly can't remember). Whenever you read a piece by Vowell, invariably, you never read it in your own voice, but her Sarah's voice ringing through, or was it Violet Parr from the Incredibles... oh wait, it's the SAME person). I guess that's the mark of a good writer, that she has developed her own style strong enough for us to hear her reading it to us. At any rate, this history nut who also goes ballistic whenever he comes across a plaque, gives this book five stars for a truly enjoyable read from a truly enjoyqable writer. |
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