Between the tangents, the bias, the snark, and the unamusing personal anecdotes (she's macabre! She's quirky! She sets off alarms at historical sites by tripping over things and/or jumping around too much!) I found it next to impossible to keep track of the actual point of the book. Other people may like this, but it wasn't for me.

Sarah's humor and wit are fantastic, and her love of history is palpable.

Every time I hear or see Sarah Vowell - as a contributor on NPR's This American Life or as a guest on The Daily Show - I want to read one of her books. But picking up a nonfiction book about American history is not my first inclination when I'm looking for a fun read.

This month I took the plunge into Vowell's Assassination Vacation. What better book for the beginning of vacation season? The book follows Vowell's road trips to sites associated with the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley.

Despite my reluctance to read history, I fully expected to love this book.

And I did enjoy it quite a bit.

The two reasons I didn't love the book as much as I expected to: in the prologue Vowell (quoting a friend) used the word "retarded" twice as a pejorative having nothing to do with people with intellectual disabilities. Yes, I'm hypersensitive about this issue. But it jarred me out of the (otherwise hilarious) narrative and got us off on the wrong foot.

A deeper "problem" with the book is Vowell's disjointed, stream-of-consciousness style. I love it and my brain often works the same way. But I found the plot (such as it is) hard to follow sometimes. Tangent split off from tangent and I dutifully followed Vowell's breadcrumb trail but in my sleep deprived state - I have a newborn baby! - I had a hard time finding my way back to the main narrative. (Are you picturing the birds of sleeplessness devouring bread crumbs? Because I am.)

Not being intimately familiar with all the characters (the assassins, their families, people near the Presidents at the time of the attacks, etc.) I occasionally had to stop and reorient myself. Wait. Who are we talking about again? And how does this relate?

But I am so so glad I read the book. I learned a ton - painlessly - and I took away something even more valuable. As an ignorant American (alas) I have little sense of historical time. I know that our nation's history is relatively short but thinking, "The Civil War was 150 years ago," didn't really mean much to me. That is, until I saw it this way:

Robert Todd Lincoln - the President's son - was an adult with an established career when his father was murdered. He was still practicing law when my grandparents were born. In fact he didn't die until they were adults. Wow, these are all current events when I think about it that way. And I didn't realize how recently we held public hangings in this country.

To sum up: Sarah Vowell is hilarious and it's worth the time to read or listen to her work whereever you find it. This is a good, interesting, and educational read. Vowell is passionate about American History - she considers it her religion - and she shares her excitement in a way that's quite infectious.

One additional caveat. Vowell wrote this book during the Iraq War and President G.W. Bush's second term. Assassination Vacation is very much a product of its own place in history; Vowell ties in current events and politics with the historical narratives, and she is very much a liberal.

*****
Review while I was still reading:

I've finished the prologue and Vowell's voice is just as clear in my head as if she were reading aloud to me. I'm laughing a lot and forcing Paul to listen to every other paragraph in my perfectly un-Vowell-like manner. But by page 11 Vowell has used the word "retarded" twice and it blasts me out of the narrative each time like an unexpected air horn in a quiet conversation with a friend.

This was a hilarious read. Sarah Vowell takes you on a journey through the history of our nation by way of it's assassinated Presidents, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy. You may well think that this subject does not lend itself to humor. You would be wrong indeed. There are also surprising correlations to today's political situation in terms of our uncivil, at times, society. We have nothing on the Congresses that were in place from 1860-1901.

This is a very quick read with a stream of consciousness narrative that is fast paced and dizzying in it's observations. There are in Vowell's narrative a plethora of obscure historical facts that have been left out, obscured, and just plain ignored in the history books. You can read this in a weekend easily and I think you will enjoy it immensely.

I adored this book. Assassinations of distant presidents have always seemed abstract to me; like it may as well have happened on another planet. Vowell turns the presidents into people and doesn’t exactly make the assassins sympathetic, but does put a face on them.

Funny and educational at the same time!

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 “All history is literature,” this person said and I shrugged and imagined maps and capitols and dates that wars ended and began and bad guys, borders and good guys, red buttons and paperwork and blah blah blah. This has all sort of recently changed for me. I’m getting better at understanding the defining features of individual decades, both politically and artistically and especially fashion-wise. As this is all coming into focus, my fifth grade level of history knowledge, more and more every day, I realize just how ignorant it sounds to say “I’m not interested in history,” which is not to say that “All literature is history” or vice versa isn’t a sort of pretentious way to chastise someone who simply isn’t into something.

This is where I blame dozens of teachers who pitched history while I was in school, each providing a dry list of names, dates and locations. I remember raising my hand in fifth grade and basically saying to my teacher: “I don’t really understand war. So, the teams just get in a line opposite each other and start shooting?” “Yes, pretty much,” he said, which wasn’t a satisfying answer to me then, and it really isn’t now. There were, of course, field trips to big buildings where men with briefcases explained how government works and pointed to portraits. But mostly field trips were just a chance to wrap a can of Dr. Pepper in tinfoil and worry about who your seat mate would be on the bus. Forget about college when I had to suddenly cram a history class into my schedule and the only one left was Ancient and reminded me of grainy movies that played on Sunday afternoons. Men in loin clothes and flip flops brandishing swords.

Cut to Sarah Vowell’s “Assassination Vacation,” a super readable, super entertaining, super funny series of road trips to even the most minute of landmarks tied to the assassination of presidents Lincoln, McKinley and Garfield. Of all the geeky goodness. Vowell tours the land looking at chunks of brains, blood-stained tiles, visiting monuments and graves and considers the back history of the killers who were prompted by God or otherwise assumed they would receive national glory for taking one for the team. And she pays homage to Lincoln’s son, who was either at the scene of the crime, or damn close, for each of these three murders. What a treat!

This thought actually came into my head when I finished the first hunk of the book: Aw, nuts, I’m not ready to stop reading about Lincoln’s assassination. But then there was James Garfield, done in by Charles Guiteau, renowned for being so unlikable that even when he joined a community of free love frolickers in upstate New York, he was unable to find a willing sexual partner. Vowells is a free-flow story teller who can explain the political climate at a certain latitude and longitude and then segue into which ironic T her traveling partner is wearing.

I’m not guaranteeing that I’m going to retain tons of what I read, but a few interesting facts here and there will come in handy as party tricks. Regardless, for the eight-ish hours it takes to read this book, Vowell had my full attention more than any other person who has attempted to spend eight-ish hours whispering history into my ear. I’m stoked to dig into her catalogue and see what other dead spots in my schooling that she can make interesting.

A book about the first three presidential assassinations, didn't know a ton about this subject, now I do. It was told in a humorous and informative way.

Listened to the audiobook. The author's voice added to the book's fun personality, however, this book is SO packed with information I feel like I retained maybe 3% of the facts that were coming my way.

Recommend if you're a history buff.

I don't read many travelogues but this book,'Assassination Vacation' by Sarah Vowell was amusing, informative and yes, morbid. I listened to the audiobook version of this book and the narration was performed by the author herself... along with some famous friends such as Stephen King as Abraham Lincoln, Jon Stewart as James Garfield and Daniel Handler as William McKinley (and many more).

Sarah Vowell, a contributor to NPR's 'This American Life' and the voice of Violet Parr in 'The Incredibles', is fascinated with presidential murder and this book takes the reader with her on a journey to various locations which pertain to three assassinated presidents.. Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield and William McKinley... and their assassins. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president, was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865 and died in the early morning hours of April 15, 1865. James Garfield, the 20th president, was shot by Charles Guiteau on July 2, 1881 and died 79 days later on September 19, 1881. William McKinley, the 25th president, was shot by Leon Czolgosz on September 6, 1901 and died September 14, 1901.

Sarah Vowel admits that her desire to explore assassinated presidents and their murderers came about in part because of her obsession with death but also because she had been struggling with her dismay and disgust over America's war of intervention in Iraq. She felt that what she needed was a pilgrimage... comparing herself to the Christians of old who traveled long distances to gaze upon the relics of beloved saints. She wasn't going to be gazing on the bones of saints but rather artifacts of presidential assassinations....

"... and while I gave up God a long time ago, I never shook the habit of wanting to believe
in something bigger and better than myself. So I replaced my creed of everlasting life
with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

When thinking about those three assassinated presidents and their assassins, Sara Vowell was surprised by the realization that the two groups perhaps have something in common... a personality trait which I found interesting...

" I am only slightly less astonished by the egotism of the assassins, the inflated self-esteem
it requires to kill a president, than I am astonished by the men who run for president. These
are people who have the gall to believe they can fix us-- us and our deficit, our fossil fuels,
our racism, poverty, our potholes and public schools. The egomania required to be president
or presidential assassin makes the two types brothers of sorts."

Accompanying Sarah Vowell on her strange pilgrimage were several tolerant, patient and indulgent friends, her sister Amy and young nephew Owen, who seemed to have inherited his aunt's fascination with the macabre. Sarah and her companions traveled from site to site.. from New York to Washington, D.C.; from Maryland to Ohio. And she provides interesting and informative descriptions of the historical places and artifacts she finds in a wise-cracking way which I found endearingly unique.

This book is filled with historical characters and places but I confess that the ones I found most interesting were the ones associated with Presidents Lincoln and Garfield. Sarah Vowell visited Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., which is where Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth while he was enjoying a play 'Our American Cousin'. While Sarah was attending a play at Ford's Theatre ('1776'), she decided to visit the Lincoln Museum, which is located in the basement of the building. She described with a mixture of reverence and humor what she saw: a blood-stained pillow upon which it is believed Lincoln rested his head while dying; a Lincoln 'mannequin' wearing the clothes he was shot in and the small derringer John Wilkes Booth used to shoot him. She also traveled to the Library of Congress where she viewed a display of the items which Lincoln had in his pockets when he was shot... a pocket knife, two pairs of reading glasses and a Confederate five-dollar bill. Sarah was moved by the sight of these items. She imagined that Lincoln had used these reading glasses to read his beloved Shakespeare and used the pocket knife to slice the apples he often ate for lunch. With her words, I could see these images too.

I was also interested in Sarah Vowell's journey to visit President James Garfield's family farm in Mentor, Ohio. I admit that before reading this book, I knew very little about James Garfield... other than the fact that he had been assassinated. After all, Garfield had only been four months into his term when he was shot. Sarah's visit to the Garfield home which has been restored by the National Park Service took me with her back in time. I could picture the old, gray clapboard house with its Victorian-style rooms and my favorite room... Garfield's library, of course. History may not remember Garfield but learning of his love for books and reading makes him unforgettable to me. Sarah affectionately described Garfield's home office and his favorite armchair which he sat in whiling away the hours with his favorite books.

I enjoyed my tour through America's strange fascination with presidential murder, but it was Sarah Vowell's final stop on her pilgrimage that stays with me. She ended up on an Easter Sunday morning at the Lincoln Memorial, which had been dedicated in 1922. Looking up at the face of Lincoln, she thought.....

"....But loving this memorial is a lot like loving this country: I might not have built the place
this way; it's a little too pompous; and if you look underneath the marble, the structure's
a fake.... But the Lincoln Memorial is still my favorite place in the world and not just in
spite of its many stupid flaws. It's my favorite place partly because of its blankness, because
of those columns that are such standard-issue civ cliches, they don't so much exist as
float. Inside the Lincoln Memorial, I know what Frederick Douglas meant when he described
what it was like to be invited to Lincoln's White House: 'I felt big there.'"

Yes, I was entertained and found myself laughing out loud as I listened to Sarah Vowell's wise-cracking humor; but I realized that I was also unexpectedly moved by this book. Despite her sometimes irreverent criticisms of American government and society... with all of our in-fighting, self-importance and even hypocrisy.... she looked upon the face of a slain president she so admired and she found a reason to love her country.

Like the three stars I gave to Looking for Alaska, this is another three stars that represents an averaging of passionate feelings in both directions, rather than the simple "it was good enough and I didn't mind reading it all" that three stars usually means in my head.

Let's start with the good passion. Sarah Vowell's enthusiasm for US history and in particular, presidential history, is really contagious. It doesn't matter that she is by nature the type of person who gets excited to see historical plaques all over a city because they mean "something happened." She culls the little details and personality traits from history that make these men colorful and humane: Garfield's "I'd rather be reading than visiting a brothel" outlook on life, the unfallen tears in Teddy Roosevelt's eyes as he was sworn in after McKinley was shot, Lincoln laughing at a terrible joke before his last moments.

This book is also really funny. Witness Robert Todd Lincoln try to deny that an underfunded and starving team on expedition to the Arctic cannibalized their dead by claiming that instead they cut up their teammates dead bodies to be used as "shrimp bait." Witness all of Charles Guiteau and the Oneida sex colony (where he was so crazy that no one would even sleep with him). And you have to love the anecdote where Sarah becomes aware that her traveling companion is talking to a historical guide in 19th century costume while wearing a bright orange shirt that says "Porn Freak Rehab."

Unlike John Green, Vowell's interest in history clearly doesn't anger me. But there is such a thing as passionate boredom, and I would be lying if I said I didn't feel that at times here. It's cool that she traveled to the grave sites of campaign managers and minor conspirators in the Lincoln plot, to Emma Goldman's home (she was the inspiration for McKinley's assassin), but those things are, for this reader, the definition of too much tangent. And they're not even entertaining like the Oneida sex colony jaunt was.

Vowell mentions sitting at a dinner party and not hearing what people are saying because she's thinking, "don't bring up McKinley, don't bring up McKinley." This is really funny and also apt here, because I think she is so interested in her subject that given the blinders of her love, she can't tell that talking extensively about the grave of a Republican campaign manager even to curious readers is a little like ultimately bringing up McKinley at that party.

Upon finishing this book, I had a strong urge to take a day trip to Washington DC, a pilgrimage to the place of Sarah Vowell's pilgrimage. I have this vague idea in my head that I'm going to do it this weekend. Wouldn't that be hilarious! But...watch me. I've been wanting to revisit the Holocaust Memorial Museum anyway.

This was a fine book! Sarah Vowell is a cross between Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jon Stewart and Wednesday Addams. Her knowledge AND love of her topic are clear. I started wondering if she would just make each stop on her bizarre journey a punch line but found something quite different: a fine discussion of events surrounding the people and places involved in the assassination of three presidents: Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. And did I learn stuff... Such rich information framed by her odd obsessions and quirky wit. She drags her reluctant but loyal friends and family on this odd journey making her story more endearing: who hasn't tried to enlist our closest friends and family to enter our own odd little world of obsessions? My favorite part was her musings at the end of the book: Comparing her love and obsession with history to the religion she rejected. She sees the blurred lines between the two and perhaps deep in her heart hopes to reconcile. Who knows how that will turn out? What I am most grateful for is that she makes it clear that within the soul of a progressive, liberal-minded thinker beats the heart of a true patriot honestly and deeply stirred by the sight of the Lincoln Memorial, the historical plaques and war memorials and all they represent. This was indeed a fine book.