event Pen Pals Author Lecture: Sarah Vowell

Through her work on This American Life and books like Assassination Vacation and The Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell has established herself as a wry yet passionate chronicler of what it means to be an American—and our most reverent/irreverent historian since Sherman first set sail with Mr. Peabody. Vowell is enamored with obscure, seemingly random details and pop culture-damaged free association—whether she’s spinning a breezy travelogue around the death beds of murdered presidents or examining early Puritan settlers through the prism of Happy Days—which gives her essays an affable, twinkle-eyed charm. That’s even more evident at public readings, where Vowell’s droll, instantly recognizable voice recasts otherwise tedious history lessons as a coffeehouse conversation with a particularly witty friend.

Through her work on This American Life and books like Assassination Vacation and The Wordy Shipmates, Sarah Vowell has established herself as a wry yet passionate chronicler of what it means to be an American—and our most reverent/irreverent historian since Sherman first set sail with Mr. Peabody. Vowell is enamored with obscure, seemingly random details and pop culture-damaged free association—whether she’s spinning a breezy travelogue around the death beds of murdered presidents or examining early Puritan settlers through the prism of Happy Days—which gives her essays an affable, twinkle-eyed charm. That’s even more evident at public readings, where Vowell’s droll, instantly recognizable voice recasts otherwise tedious history lessons as a coffeehouse conversation with a particularly witty friend.