Here’s the thing with Sarah Vowell. While I’m in the midst of her books, I’m loving them. She’s wry and smart, and the topics she chooses to write about are interesting. They’re things I only…
Posts tagged Sarah Vowell
On ‘sink or swim’ spectrum, ‘Unfamiliar Fishes’ treads water
On the first day of my eleventh-grade history class, my teacher told us we wouldn’t be learning about wars and kings. Instead, we’d be studying art movements, political trends, epidemics, religious tumult, and other agents…
Assassination Vacation
One time someone told me in a really convincing and authoritative voice that as an English major, it is really bad form that I claimed no interest in history. “All literature is history,” or maybe…
Unfamiliar Fishes
My feelings about Sarah Vowell are well documented on Minnesota Reads. Admittedly, I am a fanboy and love how she weaves history, pop culture, and humor together into books that both educate and entertain. It's…
Ben’s Top Ten Books of 2009
This year I read twenty books that earned my coveted 5-star rating. Here, in no particular order, are?the ten I feel were the best of those twenty. 1. In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto…
My name is Ben and I am a Sarah Vowell fanboy
It is difficult to write objectively about a book when the author both makes you laugh and seems to always write about things that interest you. For me, this author is Sarah Vowell and the…
My Top 10 of 2008
2008 was a pivotal year in my life because of significant advancements I made in several areas of my life, especially in intellectual and spiritual matters. I attribute these advancements to the words and ideas…
I Am Sarah Vowell’s Target Geek
In the year 2006, I road tripped to Boise, Idaho, to aid in relocating my sister-in-law. To aid me in making this journey, I borrowed two books on compact disc: Nicholas Sparks’ The Wedding and…
Book Links: Upcoming readings, Graywolf, and Best of Books lists begin
Before I get started, I just wanted to remind you all that Amy Bloom’s gonna be reading from her latest novel Away at Magers & Quinn on Tuesday, November 11th. You should check it out…
This is where the recap of the Sarah Vowell reading was gonna go
Only that shit was bananas. Seriously, she’s too a big a name to try and shove her reading between the art books and the escalators at the Barnes & Noble in Edina. I’m trying not…
The Wordy Shipmates
I often like to call Sarah Vowell the Gen X Doris Kearns Goodwin or Stephen Ambrose. She’s a historian for our time, and unlike the Goodwin and Ambrose books I had to study in college,…
Book Links: Flannery O’Connor reads
Yowza! Largehearted Boy found a site that’s made a Flannery O’Connor lecture and reading available. Now, you can listen to O’Connor read A Good Man is Hard to Find. I am downloading it now, and…