Deprecated: Array and string offset access syntax with curly braces is deprecated in /www/libraryLand/subs/reference/engine/classes/templates.class.php on line 232 Call Stack: 0.0004 404224 1. {main}() /www/libraryLand/subs/reference/engine/rss.php:0 Sarah Vowell - Free Library Land Online - Reference https://reference.library.land/ ru Sarah Vowell - Free Library Land Online - Reference DataLife Engine The Partly Cloudy Patriot https://reference.library.land/sarah-vowell/58954-the_partly_cloudy_patriot.html https://reference.library.land/sarah-vowell/58954-the_partly_cloudy_patriot.html The Partly Cloudy Patriot
Sarah Vowell travels through the American past and, in doing so, investigates the dusty, bumpy roads of her own life. In this insightful and funny collection of personal stories Vowell—widely hailed for her inimitable stories on public radio's This American Life—ponders a number of curious questions: Why is she happiest when visiting the sites of bloody struggles like Salem or Gettysburg? Why do people always inappropriately compare themselves to Rosa Parks? Why is a bad life in sunny California so much worse than a bad life anywhere else? What is it about the Zen of foul shots? And, in the title piece, why must doubt and internal arguments haunt the sleepless nights of the true patriot? Her essays confront a wide range of subjects, themes, icons, and historical moments: Ike, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton; Canadian Mounties and German filmmakers; Tom Cruise and Buffy the Vampire Slayer; twins and nerds; the Gettysburg Address, the State of the Union, and George W. Bush's inauguration. The result is a teeming and engrossing book, capturing Vowell's memorable wit and her keen social commentary.]]> Wed, 30 Oct 2002 18:15:45 +0200 The Wordy Shipmates https://reference.library.land/sarah-vowell/58953-the_wordy_shipmates.html https://reference.library.land/sarah-vowell/58953-the_wordy_shipmates.html The Wordy Shipmates
The Wordy Shipmates is New York Times best-selling author Sarah Vowell's exploration of the Puritans and their journey to America to become the people of John Winthrop's "city upon a hill"—a shining example, a "city that cannot be hid." To this day, America views itself as a Puritan nation, but Vowell investigates what that means—and what it should mean. What was this great political enterprise all about? Who were these people who are considered the philosophical, spiritual, and moral ancestors of our nation? What Vowell discovers is something far different from what their uptight shoe-buckles-and-corn reputation might suggest. The people she finds are highly literate, deeply principled, and surprisingly feisty. Their story is filled with pamphlet feuds, witty courtroom dramas, and bloody vengeance. Along the way she asks: Was Massachusetts Bay Colony governor John Winthrop a communitarian, Christlike Christian, or conformity's tyrannical enforcer? Yes! Was Rhode Island's architect Roger Williams America's founding freak or the father of the First Amendment? Same difference. What does it take to get that jezebel Anne Hutchinson to shut up? A hatchet. What was the Puritans' pet name for the Pope? The Great Whore of Babylon. Sarah Vowell's special brand of armchair history makes the bizarre and esoteric fascinatingly relevant and fun. She takes us from the modern-day reenactment of an Indian massacre to the Mohegan Sun casino, from old-timey Puritan poetry, where "righteousness" is rhymed with "wilderness," to a Mayflower-themed waterslide. Throughout The Wordy Shipmates is rich in historical fact, humorous insight, and social commentary by one of America's most celebrated voices. Thou shalt enjoy it.]]> Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:15:45 +0200 Assassination Vacation https://reference.library.land/sarah-vowell/58955-assassination_vacation.html https://reference.library.land/sarah-vowell/58955-assassination_vacation.html Assassination Vacation
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.]]> Sun, 30 Oct 2005 18:15:45 +0200 Unfamiliar Fishes https://reference.library.land/sarah-vowell/58957-unfamiliar_fishes.html https://reference.library.land/sarah-vowell/58957-unfamiliar_fishes.html Unfamiliar Fishes
From the bestselling author of The Wordy Shipmates, an examination of Hawaii, the place where Manifest Destiny got a sunburn. Many think of 1776 as the defining year of American history, when we became a nation devoted to the pursuit of happiness through self- government. In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year just as defining, when, in an orgy of imperialism, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded first Cuba, then the Philippines, becoming an international superpower practically overnight. Among the developments in these outposts of 1898, Vowell considers the Americanization of Hawaii the most intriguing. From the arrival of New England missionaries in 1820, their goal to Christianize the local heathen, to the coup d'état of the missionaries' sons in 1893, which overthrew the Hawaiian queen, the events leading up to American annexation feature a cast of beguiling, and often appealing or tragic, characters: whalers who fired cannons at the Bible-thumpers denying them their God-given right to whores, an incestuous princess pulled between her new god and her brother-husband, sugar barons, lepers, con men, Theodore Roosevelt, and the last Hawaiian queen, a songwriter whose sentimental ode "Aloha 'Oe" serenaded the first Hawaiian president of the United States during his 2009 inaugural parade. With her trademark smart-alecky insights and reporting, Vowell lights out to discover the off, emblematic, and exceptional history of the fiftieth state, and in so doing finds America, warts and all.
]]> Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:15:46 +0200 Take the Cannoli https://reference.library.land/sarah-vowell/58956-take_the_cannoli.html https://reference.library.land/sarah-vowell/58956-take_the_cannoli.html Take the Cannoli
Take the Cannoli is a moving and wickedly funny collection of personal stories stretching across the immense landscape of the American scene. Vowell tackles subjects such as identity, politics, religion, art, and history with a biting humor. She searches the streets of Hoboken for traces of the town's favorite son, Frank Sinatra. She goes under cover of heavy makeup in an investigation of goth culture, blasts cannonballs into a hillside on a father-daughter outing, and maps her family's haunted history on a road trip down the Trail of Tears. Vowell has an irresistible voice—caustic and sympathetic, insightful and double-edged—that has attracted a loyal following for her magazine writing and radio monologues on This American Life.]]> Mon, 30 Oct 2000 18:15:45 +0200 The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2017 https://reference.library.land/sarah-vowell/301487-the_best_american_nonrequired_reading_2017.html https://reference.library.land/sarah-vowell/301487-the_best_american_nonrequired_reading_2017.html The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2017
"A gift . . . One wonders how the world might be different if works in The Best American Nonrequired Reading were indeed required." —USA Today
Sarah Vowell, author of Lafayette in the Somewhat United States and other best-selling titles "gilded with snark, buoyant on charm" (NPR), worked with the students of the 826 Valencia writing lab to edit this year's anthology. They compiled new fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and the category-defying gems that have become one of the hallmarks of this lively collection.]]> Mon, 20 Nov 1995 21:43:17 +0200 Lafayette in the Somewhat United States https://reference.library.land/sarah-vowell/429786-lafayette_in_the_somewhat_united_states.html https://reference.library.land/sarah-vowell/429786-lafayette_in_the_somewhat_united_states.html Lafayette in the Somewhat United States
From the bestselling author of Assassination Vacation and Unfamiliar Fishes, a humorous and insightful account of the Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette—the one Frenchman we could all agree on—and an insightful portrait of a nation's idealism and its reality.

On August 16, 1824, an elderly French gentlemen sailed into New York Harbor and giddy Americans were there to welcome him. Or, rather, to welcome him back. It had been thirty years since the Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette had last set foot in the United States, and he was so beloved that 80,000 people showed up to cheer for him. The entire population of New York at the time was 120,000.
Lafayette's arrival in 1824 coincided with one of the most contentious presidential elections in American history, Congress had just fought its first epic battle over slavery, and the threat of a Civil War loomed. But Lafayette, belonging to neither North nor South, to no...]]> Fri, 27 Nov 2015 08:54:32 +0200 Partly Cloudy Patriot, The https://reference.library.land/sarah-vowell/434762-partly_cloudy_patriot_the.html https://reference.library.land/sarah-vowell/434762-partly_cloudy_patriot_the.html Partly Cloudy Patriot, The
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