40. 
Title: [Assassination Vacation]
Author: Sarah Vowell
Pages: 258
Genre: Nonfiction
Medium: Hardback
Acquisition: Library Book
Date Completed: May 17, 2013
Rating: ***1/2

An excerpt of Assassination Vacation in Housekeeping vs. The Dirt inspired me to pick up Vowell's book; I know shamefully little about presidential history, but the premise of the novel is appealing for anyone with a taste for the macabre or off-beat, so I thought it would be an interesting way to dip my toe into the subject.  And Vowell really seems to know her stuff, from textbook history to asides and anecdotes about the key players that keeps the story interesting and clearly represents the author's slightly quirky voice.

So why just 3.5 stars?  In the middle of the book I turned to my partner and said, "I wish she'd just stop talking.  This book could be so good if she'd just get out of her own way."  Sarah Vowell is a vociferous liberal, which is not wrong by any means, but she's a liberal like some conservatives are Confederate sympathizers: loud and angry with a great sense of superiority that doesn't actually help anything.  I even understand her anger and frustration, because I, too, had to live through the Bush administration and the shameful wars we are still plagued with, but her rhetoric is textbook without any constructive input, rendering the passages as effective as waving a Confederate flag.  Passion is admirable, but passion without action seems sophomoric.  And this is why I chose not to read about politics. 

In a nutshell, Assassination Vacation is a great popular historical text that brings the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley to a (perhaps under-informed) contemporary audience, drawing lines between places and events through the gaze of someone who demonstrates passion for both her history and her future.