Assassination Vacation
by Sarah Vowell
Buy book: $13.02

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.

 

This author writes with startling effect! From intriguing me with a stage play I'd never otherwise CONSIDER seeing, to lining up how one generation's sad political defeat blossomed into later generations' bloodshed, Vowell argues compellingly.
I appreciate her insight on the value of concrete marigold planters, those sentinels of our confused national stance on aggression and self-protection.

I love Sarah Vowell and love her writing. I've seen her on Book TV and love her delivery. I've read and and can highly recommend this book. I also love and recently re-read Partly Cloudy Patriot.

I just joined the book club and joined the Assassination "mid-vacation". Sarah is new to me, but after completing today's excerpt, I am looking forward to future installments.

As much fun as such a book may be, it is pretty loose with its history. To call the conspiracy theories that the Confederate government was implicated in Ford's Theatre "convincing" is a real stretch. Maybe it takes reading more than one book as research.