Assassination Vacation

Book #5 was Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell.

Sarah Vowell should be required by law to write every history book in America. She should also be required to write five books a year, minimum. She's fabulous, her history books are fabulous, everything she writes is fabulous, and she's an Art History major - reason enough to be obsequious.

Sorry - digressed there for a minute. Assassination vacation is about three different assassinations in US presidential history. Ms. Vowell traverses the country tracking down the famous spots where major events leading up to, or involved in, those assassinations happened. She covers the McKinley assassination, the Garfield assassination, and the Lincoln assassination. Not only is the writing and the history a humorous and riveting page-turner, but she does an amazing job at making otherwise prosaic periods of US history fascinating. She even talks about the relative obscurity of Garfield, especially when compared to the fan fare around Lincoln's assassination.

The book was especially relevant to me for three reasons:

1. I had just finished the First Great Triumph, which actually talks in great detail about the McKinley era and assassination. it was great fun to read AV and be reminded of what I'd read or considered notable from that book. She and I even walked away with the same impression that the headlines from yesteryear could've been verbatim lifted from the headlines of today. Inter-linking between books always feels momentous, for some reason.

2. I had just recently visiting Washington DC and Ford's Theater, in particular. She does an excellent job of capturing what makes Ford's Theater so captivating, and the tale so gripping. Ford's Theater is really a severely under rated tourist destination in DC, and I hope her book gets the word out more on what a great afternoon a tourist can spend there.

3. It was my first library book - and full library read - in ages. Go me!