I feel super bad about this review. Kate Beaton deserves my best words, because she is a wonderful, smart, creative genius who produces such sassy and perfect art. But I super read this in the middle of the night during a Read-a-thon, and other than remembering that I laughed frequently, loudly, and obnoxiously, I remember NOTHING about this book. I mean, the entirety of my oh so helpful Goodreads review after reading was, “This book wasn’t long enough.” THANKS A BUNCH, ASHLEY. If you aren’t familiar […]
Everyone Give it up for America’s Favorite Fighting Frenchman
Like many people, I’ve been listening to the Hamilton soundtrack non-stop and learning more about the American Revolutionary War than I ever did in school. Lafayette is easily one of the coolest characters in the musical, but also in real life. I’d been meaning to get to one of Sarah Vowell’s books, so when she published Lafayette in the Somewhat United States in October, it was kismet. Vowell tells the story of the teenaged Marquis de Lafayette leaving his family in France to join the […]
I really love talking about the 1840s, everything was a mess – including medicine.
I want to thank my fellow ‘ballers for bringing this book to my attention. I work in museums, and I have two conferences this month in Philadelphia. This meant that if I timed some things correctly, and gave myself a day, I could actually go to a couple museums in Philly. Let it be said that after living less than three hours away from the city for over 6 years I finally managed to go sightseeing in Philadelphia this week. Go me! As part of […]
Lincoln was late to his own assassination.
There’s something about the way Sarah Vowell writes about history that brings it to life for me. Probably because there’s something about the way that Sarah Vowell writes about people, and history is made of people. It often doesn’t feel that way. (Ironically, there’s a section in here where she tells a story about a time where she ended up yelling at some guy in a supermarket about how the only time it would be interesting to live through history would be if you were […]