Sarah Vowell

Minor wear and tear. Light smudge on the front cover. Good binding and no markings in the text.

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Minnesota

The author shares her perspective on such topics as the 2000 election, present-day civil rights activists, and the relationship between the United States and Canada.

The Partly Cloudy Patriot

0d295aa4-5de1-4ca2-a0e5-eccd261eed83-1

California

Pages starting to yellow. Sticker residue at bottom of spine. 

Arizona

Pages are slightly yellowed but otherwise very good condition. 🙂

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Ohio

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

New York

From the author who Nick Hornby calls smart, funny, soulful, and even educational--a smart, funny, soulful, and even educational collection of first-person experiences about life in America. Vowell captures the hilarious and moving things that happen when she confronts history.

Oregon

A cultural profile of Puritan life covers a wide range of topics, from their covenant communities and deep-rooted ideologies to their beliefs about church and state and their perspectives on other faiths, in an account that also evaluates their legacy in today's world. 125,000 first printing.

The Wordy Shipmates

5c0757d7-4738-4865-9b26-ad0308ff9437-1

Illinois

From the author of Lafayette in the Somewhat United States comes an examination of Hawaii, the place where Manifest Destiny got a sunburn. 


 

Of all the countries the United States invaded or colonized in 1898, Sarah Vowell considers the story of the Americanization of Hawaii to be the most intriguing. From the arrival of the New England missionaries in 1820, who came to Christianize the local heathens, to the coup d'état led by the missionaries' sons in 1893, overthrowing the Hawaiian queen, the events leading up to American annexation feature a cast of beguiling, if often appalling or tragic, characters. Whalers who fire cannons at the Bible-thumpers denying them their god-given right to whores; an incestuous princess pulled between her new god and her brother-husb∧ sugar barons, con men, Theodore Roosevelt, and the last Hawaiian queen, a songwriter whose sentimental ode "Aloha 'Oe" serenaded the first Hawaiian-born president of the United States during his 2009 inaugural parade.

With her trademark wry insights and reporting, Vowell sets out to discover the odd, emblematic, and exceptional history of the fiftieth state. In examining the place where Manifest Destiny got a sunburn, she finds America again, warts and all.

Unfamiliar Fishes

1ef83b4d-b901-4b2f-974e-ad5501450a6e-1

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Michigan

Stories from the New World

"Take the Cannoli" is a moving and wickedly funny collection of personal stories stretching across the immense landscape of the American scene. Hailed by "Newsweek" as a "cranky stylist with talent to burn," 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.

While tackling subjects such as identity, politics, religion, art, and history, these autobiographical tales are written with a biting humor, placing Vowell solidly in the tradition of Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker. Vowell 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.

"Take the Cannoli" is an eclectic tour of the New World, a collection of alternately hilarious and heartbreaking essays and autobiographical yarns.

Take the Cannoli

ff62dfc6-3276-4513-8879-e59554dfb724-1

Washington

This book is a clean copy with a good spine and binding. The contents and Graphics are in good condition. There is minimal wear inside. There is slight wear on the paperback cover. Will ship within hours after your order is received. Thanks for stopping by and please stay safe.

Texas

Florida

Drawn to the patriots' war out of a lust for glory, Enlightenment ideas, and the French hatred for the British, teenaged French aristocrat the Marquis de Lafayette crossed the Atlantic expecting to join forces with an undivided people. Instead he encountered fault lines between the Continental Congress and the Continental Army, rebel and loyalist inhabitants, and a conspiracy to fire George Washington, the one man holding together the rickety, seemingly doomed patriot cause. Riding shotgun with Lafayette, Vowell swerves from the high-minded debates of Independence Hall to the frozen wasteland of Valley Forge, from bloody battlefields to the Palace of Versailles.

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

597b0dec-111e-4072-b4a2-90ae077dfd99-1

Louisiana

New York Times bestselling author of The Wordy Shipmates and contributor to NPR’s "This American Life" Sarah Vowell embarks on a road trip to sites of political violence, from Washington DC to Alaska, to better understand our nation’s ever-evolving political system and history. 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.

Assassination Vacation

bad138b2-a9ef-47a7-9c12-9fd0de9f48b2-1

Oklahoma

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 America could all agree on - and an insightful portrait of a nation's idealism and its reality. A fascinating alternative US civil war story, from a writer who specialises in obscure political history.

🌺 Hardcover Edition
🌺 Nonfiction/History
🌺 Hawaii

Maryland

 * Watch a video

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.

A Listener's Diary

There are approximately 502 million radios in America. For this savvy, far-reaching diary, celebrated journalist and author Sarah Vowell turned hers on and listened--closely, critically, creatively--for an entire year.

As a series of impressions and reflections regarding contemporary American culture, and as an extended meditation on both our media and our society, this keenly focused book is as insightful as it is refreshing.

Throughout Radio On, "Vowell's touch is about as delicate as Teddy Kennedy's after a pitcher of martinis" (Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times).

Radio On

73e169f1-1f4f-42b7-ad67-e97a4515a940-1

Rhode Island

Nevada

West Virginia

Georgia

A collection of essays and autobiographical stories in which the author offers her humorous take on identity, politics, religion, art, history, and other topics.

Browse by categories

Save this search

Sarah Vowell

The Partly Cloudy Patriot

Sarah Vowell

The Partly Cloudy Patriot

Sarah Vowell

The Partly Cloudy Patriot

Sarah Vowell

The Partly Cloudy Patriot

Sarah Vowell

The Partly Cloudy Patriot

Sarah Vowell

The Partly Cloudy Patriot

Sarah Vowell

The Wordy Shipmates

Sarah Vowell

Unfamiliar Fishes

Sarah Vowell

The Wordy Shipmates

Sarah Vowell

The Partly Cloudy Patriot

Sarah Vowell

Take the Cannoli

Sarah Vowell

Unfamiliar Fishes

Sarah Vowell

Take the Cannoli

Sarah Vowell

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

Sarah Vowell

Assassination Vacation

Sarah Vowell

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

Sarah Vowell

Unfamiliar Fishes

Sarah Vowell

Radio On

Sarah Vowell

Take the Cannoli

Sarah Vowell

Assassination Vacation

Sarah Vowell

Assassination Vacation

Sarah Vowell

The Wordy Shipmates

Sarah Vowell

Take the Cannoli

Sarah Vowell

Assassination Vacation