|
Loading... The Wordy Shipmatesby Sarah Vowell
LibraryThing recommendationsMember recommendationsLoading...
won't like
will probably not like
will probably like
will like
will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. This wasn't as good as Vowell's other books. While witty, it didn't seem to have the depth of humor that her other titles did. I was also put off by the fact that there were no separate chapters.  puckandhammie | Nov 8, 2009 |  Along the way to the creation of Rhode Island, kings die, wars are fought, allegiances switch, and letters abound. Vowell dusts off the trappings of people’s conception of history, and breathes not only life into it, but infuses it with humor and pathos as well. Beware this book: not only might you learn something, you might also enjoy it while you do. (  ) Girl_Detective | Nov 4, 2009 | I like Vowell's style and her choice of subject matter here was fascinating, but I felt like she has a tendency to gloss over details and run off on tangents. I'd like to try some of her collections of short works and essays, as she seems more suited to that style. (  ) llamagirl | Nov 2, 2009 | This rambling account of John Winthrop's Massacusetts Bay Colony interspersed with the author's commentary on 20th century events was informative but too undisciplined to make it worth finishing. An introduction, chapter breaks, and source citations were all absent making it impossible to grasp where she was going with this, or to care much. (  ) allmccarters | Nov 1, 2009 | Sarah Vowell is amazingly curt and funny. Her historical accounts are brazen and hauntingly accurate. A must read for history buffs with a sense of humor. (  ) verucas_chaos | Oct 27, 2009 | 
 Sarah Vowell is a problem. She’s a problem like Sarah Palin, Cyndi Lauper and Kathy Griffin. She’s annoying. Or, really, she’s double-annoying, because she styles herself as annoying — provocative-annoying — and if you become annoyed by her you seem to be conceding the point. She’s gotten to you. Take “The Wordy Shipmates,” her fifth book. Vowell has integrated her sarcasm, flat indie-girl affect and kitsch worship — refined in print and on public radio — into a pop history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Known for her adenoid-helium voice, Vowell is a genial talker but an undisciplined writer. This new book mixes jiggers of various weak liquors — paraphrase, topical one-liners, blogger tics — and ends up tasting kind of festive but bad, like Long Island iced tea.
No descriptions found. The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
Abebooks |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
