Oct. 8: Sarah Vowell shines

If you’re familiar with NPR even a little bit, you may have heard of Sarah Vowell. If you’ve seen The Incredibles, you may recognize her as the voice of Violet. And if you’ve spent much time with me or my mom, you’ve probably heard us sing Sarah Vowell’s endless praises. We love her.

I probably know her better as an author than from all the other work she’s done, although I remember seeing her on Letterman years ago—at the time I had no idea who she was, but thoroughly enjoyed listening to the very clever interview. I would compare her to David Sedaris—a smart, witty writer—but instead of writing about wacky family members and travel experiences, Sarah Vowell writes about history and politics. This is her Wikipedia page. And here you can find an overview of her work and schedule of appearances.

The topics of her books are especially interesting, even to a non-history buff like me. Her last, Assassination Vacation, is about what she learned while touring sites of important assassinations in our country’s history. Her newest book, The Wordy Shipmates, came out yesterday; it’s about her research into American Puritans.

If you’re not a TiVo convert yet, what is wrong with you? Don’t you listen to anything I say? Because one of the best things about TiVo is being able to create a wish list so that any upcoming show that lists “Sarah Vowell” on it will be recorded. That’s how I caught her scheduled appearance on The Late Show Monday night. For your viewing pleasure, I dug up the YouTube video of the interview.



I love the part about the Supreme Court decision with which Sarah was not so pleased.

Barnes & Noble page for The Wordy Shipmates
Amazon page for The Wordy Shipmates

Sarah’s reading from her new book in Portland next week. I’m not sure I’m going to make it to that event, but I went to her last one and thought she was fabulous. If you ever have the chance to hear her lecture in person, go. You will most definitely be entertained.