From Publishers Weekly
Looking for insight into why she prefers Little Bighorn and Gettysburg to Martha's Vineyard, Vowell (author of the witty Take the Cannoli) calls her friend Kate, who works as a counselor for survivors of torture, who says, "That's how we try to make sense of the worst horrors. We use humor to manage anxiety." If Kate's right, then Vowell is managing her anxiety very well. Her best short, personal essays (anywhere from about two to 12 pages) focus on her ambivalent relationship to American history and citizenship: no one in recent memory has been as insightful on the direct pleasures and perils of voting, the misuse of Rosa Parks as a metaphor, the appeal of Canadians (who "ha[ve] this weird knack for loving their country in public without resorting to swagger or hate") and the relative merits of presidential libraries. Further undone, perhaps, by her devotion to such topics, Vowell also offers an eloquent defense of being a nerd: "Going too far and caring too much about a subject is the best way to make friends that I know." To wit, her hilarious essay "The Nerd Voice," which chronicles her political e-mail group as "the all-time nerdiest thing I've ever been involved in, and I say that as a person who has been involved with public radio and marching band." Even in the essays on pop culture, like "The New German Cinema" and "Tom Cruise Makes Me Nervous," Vowell, like David Sedaris, goes too far, cares too much and remains a very anxious and extremely funny citizen and shady patriot.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-These essays and commentaries from Vowell's NPR radio appearances and other sources are curmudgeonly, critical, liberal, and, often, laugh-out-loud funny. The commentator, a self-described history nerd, wanders across the spectrum of American life from the theme-park feeling of Salem, MA, where she purchased a Witch's Crossing shot glass, to the glories of Carlsbad Caverns and the Underground Luncheonette. She belongs to a political listserv that was aghast at the results of the 2000 election, yet, joining several of the members on a road trip to protest the Inauguration, she ended up weeping as she sang the "Star-Spangled Banner." Her commitment to America and her dismay about the current direction of the government, both before and after September 11, are strongly stated, but her wit and slightly quirky outlook make reading her book a pleasure. Teens, regardless of their political leanings, will enjoy the pop-culture connections and even learn some history while smiling at her delivery. This title will work well for assignments on essay writing and even provide material for monologues.Susan H. Woodcock, Fairfax County Public Library, Chantilly, VACopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Part social commentary and part standup comedy routine for the intellectually inclined, this collection of essays from Vowell, a contributing editor to NPR's This American Life, mines history and current events for insights into American life. Topics range from the quirky like an exploration of the value of pointless arcade games and Tom Cruise's "breakthrough" in Magnolia to a revealing example of how Al Gore's "Pinocchio problem" may have been manufactured during the 2000 election and the author's personal reflections on patriotism post- September 11. Interspersed are musings on presidential libraries, U.S./Canadian differences, and being a twin, as well as a history buff's view of why the field is significant. Most of these essays have appeared in print or been broadcast on NPR, but this compilation emphasizes a theme and provides an interesting contrast between pre- and post-attack life perspectives. The author's Gen-X frame of reference is clear, but the book should appeal to a wider audience of armchair historians and others who enjoy irreverent social commentary. The author wrote the similarly brash Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World and Radio On: A Listener's Diary. Highly recommended for large public libraries. Antoinette Brinkman, MLS, Evansville, INCopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
This is one of those rare tapes you want to talk back to. Public radio commentator and bestselling author Sarah Vowell has a disarmingly intelligent and conversational way of reading her penetrating, humorous, and wide-ranging commentaries. She jumps from the topics of Thanksgiving with her parents to Carlsbad Cavern to the Salem witch trials with an intimacy and ease learned from delivering her work over the airwaves. Vowell is irreverently reverent about the one subject she often returns to--what it means to be an American. Here she doesn't aim for easy laughs. She's much more interested in uneasy truths. Conan O'Brien and Norman Lear, among others, make cameo appearances. Not only fun and entertaining, but thought-provoking, as well. B.P. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
With a disposition that is less than sunny and an avid enthusiasm for history, Vowell, a contributor to public radio's This American Life, offers a collection of essays on a variety of historic and modern political events and people. Her crabbiness lets her cut through the cute and precious to observe the underlying gut issues--the tension beneath President Lincoln's delivery of the Gettysburg Address, the audacity of a variety of complainants to compare their situations to Rosa Parks' stand against racial segregation. A self-described Democrat and "civics nerd," Vowell recounts the endless debates about the 2000 presidential election among her group of political fanatic friends--"a sarcastic Internet consortium of amateur media watchdogs"--that culminated in a road trip to witness the inauguration, loudly singing the national anthem although their candidate hadn't won. In the title essay, Vowell laments the growing pressure to display patriotism since the terrorist attacks, a pressure that provokes her skepticism. This is a humorous, insightful, and informative look at one individual's sense of patriotism. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
Hartford Courant [Vowell's] collection of essays explores patriotism and other aspects of contemporary life from the refreshingly contrarian view of a thoughtfully disaffected, wryly outspoken and deeply passionate citizen.

San Francisco Chronicle Even though her pieces make us laugh about every fourth line, we feel as if there's something more significant at work....A writer of fierce observational powers who wears her intelligence and wit as comfortably as an old pair of pajamas.

Entertainment Weekly Droll, intelligent, and persuasive.


Review
Entertainment Weekly Droll, intelligent, and persuasive.


Review
Entertainment Weekly Droll, intelligent, and persuasive.


Book Description
Sarah Vowell travels through the American past and, in doing so, investigates the dusty, bumpy roads of her own life. In this insightful and funny collection of personal stories Vowell -- widely hailed for her inimitable stories on public radio's This American Life -- ponders a number of curious questions: Why is she happiest when visiting the sites of bloody struggles like Salem or Gettysburg? Why do people always inappropriately compare themselves to Rosa Parks? Why is a bad life in sunny California so much worse than a bad life anywhere else? What is it about the Zen of foul shots? And, in the title piece, why must doubt and internal arguments haunt the sleepless nights of the true patriot? Her essays confront a wide range of subjects, themes, icons, and historical moments: Ike, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton; Canadian Mounties and German filmmakers; Tom Cruise and Buffy the Vampire Slayer; twins and nerds; the Gettysburg Address, the State of the Union, and George W. Bush's inauguration. The result is a teeming and engrossing book, capturing Vowell's memorable wit and her keen social commentary.


About the Author
Sarah Vowell is the author of Take the Cannoli and is a contributing editor for public radio's This American Life. She lives in New York City.

FROM OUR EDITORS

"I've always had these fantasies about being a normal family in which the parents come to town and their adult daughter spends their entire visit daydreaming of suicide. I'm here to tell you that dreams really do come true." Regular listeners of her PRI show, This American Life, know that Sarah Vowell is a storyteller whose pieces range from read-out-loud hilarious to poignant and ruminative.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Sarah Vowell travels through the American past and, in doing so, investigates the dusty, bumpy roads of her own life. In this insightful and funny collection of personal stories Vowell -- widely hailed for her inimitable stories on public radio's This American Life -- ponders a number of curious questions: Why is she happiest when visiting the sites of bloody struggles like Salem or Gettysburg? Why do people always inappropriately compare themselves to Rosa Parks? Why is a bad life in sunny California so much worse than a bad life anywhere else? What is it about the Zen of foul shots? And, in the title piece, why must doubt and internal arguments haunt the sleepless nights of the true patriot? Her essays confront a wide range of subjects, themes, icons, and historical moments: Ike, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton; Canadian Mounties and German filmmakers; Tom Cruise and Buffy the Vampire Slayer; twins and nerds; the Gettysburg Address, the State of the Union, and George W. Bush's inauguration. The result is a teeming and engrossing book, capturing Vowell's memorable wit and her keen social commentary.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New Yorker

Sarah Vowell, a contributing editor to "This American Life," on National Public Radio, knows that she's not a fair-weather patriot -- at least not the kind Thomas Paine disparaged in the first installment of the "American Crisis" papers, which was written in the fall of 1776, when Washington's troops were retreating. But she can't get behind the idea of citizenship as sing-along that has been prevalent since September 11th. The Partly Cloudy Patriot (Simon & Schuster), her latest book, is a collection of radio segments and magazine pieces. Vowell, a charismatic misanthrope, repeats the mantra "We the people, we the people" to keep from freaking out on the humid, overstuffed subway. She also thinks about the Civil War "all the time, every day," vacations in Salem, and takes walking tours of Thomas Jefferson's Paris years. Fashioning herself as Clinton's "crabby little cheerleader," she admits a guilty pleasure in voting. Of the booth: "I love it in there. I drag it out, leisurely punching the names I want as if sipping whiskey in front of a fire."

Book Magazine - Kevin Greenberg

Neurotic and witty, this book collects fragments of Vowell's experience as an American. The author has a unique perspective on some of the nation's most celebrated events and the places where they occurred, all filtered through the prism of her occasionally weird upbringing in a family of "homebody claustrophobes" enveloped in an "Impenetrable Shield of Melancholy." The book presents a varied and engaging portrait of the author as a product of more than 200 years of American history. Though she portrays herself as a "crabby cheerleader," Vowell is a great lover of her homeland. Refreshingly devoid of pretense, these pieces will likely provide solace to those fellow citizens who are both proud and deeply embarrassed to be living in America.

Publishers Weekly

Few narrators could sound complimentary when calling Al Gore a "big honking nerd," but Vowell (Take the Cannoli), a self-proclaimed nerd, succeeds in doing just that while reading her collection of thoughtful, humorous essays on politics, patriotism and Tom Cruise (among other topics). Vowell's thin, reedy voice and halting delivery take some getting used to, but she settles into a comfortable groove by the end of the first tape, when she relates what she's learned from visiting places like Gettysburg and Witch City (otherwise known as Salem): no matter what your troubles are, "it could be worse." This is followed by an upbeat tune by They Might Be Giants, who composed the music for this audio. It's hard to resist a catchy, comical verse like, "You asked for baked potato/and they gave you fries/but that's not as sad now/is it/as the day the music died," but it's even more difficult to resist Vowell's obvious passion for history, for Al Gore and for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The full plate of special guests-including Conan O'Brien, Stephen Colbert and Michael Chabon-make token contributions: Colbert does an admirable impersonation of Gore and the oddly chosen O'Brien attempts to fill Abraham Lincoln's shoes. In the end, however, it is Vowell's self-deprecating wit and earnest delivery that will win over listeners. Based on the S&S hardcover (Forecasts, June 24, 2002). (Oct.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Part social commentary and part standup comedy routine for the intellectually inclined, this collection of essays from Vowell, a contributing editor to NPR's This American Life, mines history and current events for insights into American life. Topics range from the quirky like an exploration of the value of pointless arcade games and Tom Cruise's "breakthrough" in Magnolia to a revealing example of how Al Gore's "Pinocchio problem" may have been manufactured during the 2000 election and the author's personal reflections on patriotism post- September 11. Interspersed are musings on presidential libraries, U.S./Canadian differences, and being a twin, as well as a history buff's view of why the field is significant. Most of these essays have appeared in print or been broadcast on NPR, but this compilation emphasizes a theme and provides an interesting contrast between pre- and post-attack life perspectives. The author's Gen-X frame of reference is clear, but the book should appeal to a wider audience of armchair historians and others who enjoy irreverent social commentary. The author wrote the similarly brash Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World and Radio On: A Listener's Diary. Highly recommended for large public libraries. Antoinette Brinkman, MLS, Evansville, IN

School Library Journal