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Assassination Vacation
- Narrated by: Conan O'Brien, Stephen King, Dave Eggers, Jon Stewart
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
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Publisher's summary
From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue, it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and, the author's favorite, historical tourism.
Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are lighter diversions into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a 19th-century biblical sex cult.
In Order of Appearance:
Conan O'Brien...Robert Todd Lincoln
Eric Bogosian...John Wilkes Booth
Stephen King...President Abraham Lincoln
Dave Eggers...Mike Ryan
Catherine Keener...Gretchen Worden
Jon Stewart...President James A. Garfield
Tony Kushner...John Humphrey Noyes
Brad Bird...Charles Guiteau & Emma Goldman
Daniel Handler...President William McKinley
Greg Giraldo...President Theodore Roosevelt
David Rakoff...Leon Czolgosz
Critic reviews
- 2005 Audie Award Nominee, Multi-Voiced Performance
- 2005 Publishers Weekly Listen Up Award, Humor
"Vowell has a perspective on American history that is definitely funny." (School Library Journal)
"Wacky, weirdly enthralling....This is history at its most morbid and most fascinating and, fortunately, one needn't share Vowell's interest in the macabre to thoroughly enjoy this unusual tour." (Publishers Weekly)
"An engaging tour....Audiobook listeners get serious bang for their buck, including guest appearances by Stephen King (as Lincoln), Jon Stewart, Conan O'Brien, and Eric Bogosian, among others." (AudioFile)
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One of the best books ever written about Lincoln by Dale Carnegie. Chronicles the inner life and struggles of Abraham Lincoln, how he led a life of poverty, how he went from pauper to become president, how he emerged from obscurity and became the Republican nominee at the 1860 Chicago convention, how he loved to tell humorous stories, and that he was an avid reader of Shakespeare.
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Lincoln
- By Amazon Customer on 06-11-21
By: Dale Carnegie
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My Thoughts Be Bloody
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- By: Nora Titone, Doris Kearns Goodwin - introduction/notes
- Narrated by: John B. Lloyd
- Length: 19 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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My Thoughts Be Bloody, a sweeping family saga, revives an extraordinary figure whose name has been missing, until now, from the story of President Lincoln's death. Edwin Booth, John Wilkes's older brother by four years, was in his day the biggest star of the American stage. Without an account of Edwin Booth, author Nora Titone argues, the real story of Lincoln's assassin has never been told.
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Wonderful!
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By: Nora Titone, and others
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Create Dangerously
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- Narrated by: Kristin Kalbli
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
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In this deeply personal book, the celebrated Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat reflects on art and exile. Inspired by Albert Camus and adapted from her own lectures for Princeton University’s Toni Morrison Lecture Series, here Danticat tells stories of artists who create despite (or because of) the horrors that drove them from their homelands. Combining memoir and essay, these moving and eloquent pieces examine what it means to be an artist from a country in crisis.
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A very important book.
- By Tyler on 12-07-19
By: Edwidge Danticat
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The Possessed
- Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them
- By: Elif Batuman
- Narrated by: Elif Batuman
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Possessed we watch Elif Batuman investigate a possible murder at Tolstoy's ancestral estate. We go with her to Stanford, Switzerland, and St. Petersburg; retrace Pushkin's wanderings in the Caucasus; learn why Old Uzbek has 100 different words for crying; and see an 18th-century ice palace reconstructed on the Neva. Love and the novel, the individual in history, the existential plight of the graduate student: all find their places in The Possessed.
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Dear Russian Literary Diary...
- By Darwin8u on 08-29-17
By: Elif Batuman
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Abraham Lincoln
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- By: Joe Wheeler
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Author Joe Wheeler brings to this insightful audiobook the knowledge gleaned from over 10 years of study and more than 60 books on the life and times of Abraham Lincoln. Skillfully weaving his own narrative with direct quotes from Abraham Lincoln and poignant excerpts from other Lincoln biographers, Joe Wheeler brings a refreshingly friendly rendition Lincoln's life, faith and courage.
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Retreads
- By J B Tipton on 04-22-09
By: Joe Wheeler
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The Jaguar Smile
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- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: John Curless
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"I did not go to Nicaragua intending to write a book, or, indeed, to write at all: but my encounter with the place affected me so deeply that in the end I had no choice." So notes Salman Rushdie in his first work of nonfiction, a book as imaginative and meaningful as his acclaimed novels. In The Jaguar Smile, Rushdie paints a brilliantly sharp and haunting portrait of the people, the politics, the terrain, and the poetry of "a country in which the ancient, opposing forces of creation and destruction were in violent collision".
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simply Amazing!
- By Cesar Briones on 07-01-18
By: Salman Rushdie
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Blood Done Sign My Name
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On May 11, 1970, Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old Black veteran, walked into a crossroads store owned by Robert Teel and came out running. Teel and two of his sons chased and beat Marrow, then killed him in public as he pleaded for his life. Like many small Southern towns, Oxford had barely been touched by the civil rights movement. But in the wake of the killing, young African Americans took to the streets. While lawyers battled in the courthouse, the Klan raged in the shadows and Black Vietnam veterans torched the town’s tobacco warehouses.
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This Is A Very Good Book
- By Caleb on 03-22-05
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The Sugar King of Havana
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Fifty years after the Cuban revolution, the legendary wealth of the sugar magnate Julio Lobo remains emblematic of a certain way of life that came to an abrupt end when Fidel Castro marched into Havana. Known in his day as the King of Sugar, Lobo was for decades the most powerful force in the world sugar market, controlling vast swaths of the island's sugar interests.
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VERY INFORMATIVE
- By Terry on 03-26-12
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North Korea Undercover
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North Korea is like no other tyranny on Earth. Its citizens are told their home is the greatest nation in the world, and Big Brother is always watching. It is Orwell's 1984 made reality. Huge factories with no staff or electricity, hospitals with no patients, uniformed child soldiers, and the world-famous and eerily empty DMZ - the Demilitarized Zone, where North Korea ends and South Korea begins - are all framed by a relentless flow of regime propaganda from omnipresent loudspeakers. Free speech is an illusion: one word out of line, and the gulag awaits.
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Highly listenable, humorous and enlightening
- By Kevin Stokes on 09-09-15
By: John Sweeney
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The Last Love Song
- A Biography of Joan Didion
- By: Tracy Daugherty
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 26 hrs and 43 mins
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Joan Didion lived a life in the public and private eye with her late husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, whom she met while the two were working in New York City, when Didion was at Vogue and Dunne was writing for Time. They became wildly successful writing partners when they moved to Los Angeles and cowrote screenplays and adaptations together. Didion is well known for her literary journalistic style in both fiction and nonfiction.
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Riveted for 1591 miles
- By Kaysi12 on 04-11-16
By: Tracy Daugherty
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Alexander Hamilton's Guide to Life
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Two centuries after his death, Alexander Hamilton is shining once more under America's spotlight - and we need him now more than ever. Orphaned as a kid, this young, scrappy, and hungry self-starter came from nothing and then helped win the Revolutionary War, created the country's financial system, seduced New York's most eligible ladies, ratified the Constitution, and landed his face on our $10 bill. (In his spare time he also formed the Coast Guard and the US Mint.) He is the ultimate underdog.
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Amazing
- By Robert McGrorty on 02-27-19
By: Jeff Wilser
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It Can't Happen Here
- By: Sinclair Lewis
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
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Doremus Jessup, a newspaper editor, is dismayed to find that many of the people he knows support presidential candidate Berzelius Windrip. The suspiciously fascist Windrip is offering to save the nation from sex, crime, welfare cheats, and a liberal press. But after Windrip wins the election, dissent soon becomes dangerous for Jessup. Windrip forcibly gains control of Congress and the Supreme Court and, with the aid of his personal paramilitary storm troopers, turns the United States into a totalitarian state.
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The Rise of American Authoritarianism
- By David S. Mathew on 11-21-16
By: Sinclair Lewis
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What listeners say about Assassination Vacation
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- JJ HUNSECKER
- 12-23-16
I love Vowell's narration...
Would you listen to Assassination Vacation again? Why?
...because her voice sounds, to me, and endearingly so, exactly like the voices of the characters in the animated Peanuts specials. Love it!
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Overall
- Michael
- 03-01-06
Fantastic
If you like Sarah Vowell on the radio, you will absolutely love this audiobook. I have to take issue with those who complain about Vowell's voice, and say it would be better to read than listen. Quite the opposite. Sarah's quirky voice only adds to the experience -- her unique/odd inflection only gives the words additional layers of meaning and nuanced humor; the storytelling is truly in Vowell's voice, both narratively and literally, which is good. Vowell is a delight, and listening to this audiobook was truly a delightful experience. I would give it 6 stars if I could.
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- Anonymous User
- 03-15-22
Interesting history
I love Sarah Vowell’s take on history always, and I always learn something new about history. In this book, I learned the back stories about the deaths of Lincoln, Garfield, & McKinley.
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- Bill Ellsworth
- 01-25-16
Great book. Difficult performance.
This is a wonderfully researched book. It's funny and most of the detours from the main story line are interesting or entertaining. I love her political wit. She had a slightly sardonic way of speaking that'd works well with the story line. She's an endearing reader. But using a sardonic tone of voice produces many drop offs in the tone. As an elderly listener it made it difficult to hear; making me resort to using earphones and concentrate more on simply trying to catch the words.
I did not like at all the interjection of the music which most of the time went along with the reading making it almost impossible for me to hear her words. Equally distracting were all the other voices. Sometimes it worked but most of the time it didn't.
In short I loved the book but had some problems with the performance.
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Overall
- Michael Harrison
- 08-02-05
Quirky and Enchanting
I can see how Sarah Vowell's voice may seem grating, but I suppose years of hearing her pieces on "This American Life" has conditioned me to expect greatness whenever I hear it.
This book isn't any different. It reminds me a great deal of some of those bits on "TAL" dealing with historic figures (Lafayette was a recent one). Her obsession with Presidential assassinations is cleverly portrayed in her well-crafted writing style, and her narration is dead-on.
Any complaints about Vowell's "Bush-bashing" should be taken very lightly. She takes a few jabs at our current President, but only to make a few points about the arrogance of assassins... people who deign to make the decision for the country on whether or not a given person is suitable to lead us. I think she raises a very valid point by bringing up Dubya.
A pleasure to listen to, thanks in no small part to Vowell's group of buddies lending narrative variety to our country's cast of characters. Particular kudos to Brad Bird for his funny-but-creepy readings of Charles Guiteau's gallows-poetry.
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29 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Gene
- 08-05-05
Painful listening to terrific storytelling
I learned more about Lincoln, Garfield (who?) and McKinley than I ever imagined. The stories of the assassins themselves and their motives, backgrounds and post-shooting history was a step back into an Americana that possesses many surprising similarities to today's America.
Unfortunately, listening to the narrator's voice was so painful for me. I slugged through it with only one break to hear what was coming next because I was on a plane; if I had several breaks, I would've been tempted at any time to not continue, just to avoid that voice! Lisa Simpson-esque, full of awkward starts and stops and pauses -- DEFINITELY listen to the sample first (I didn't).
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15 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Chris Dorosky
- 04-24-05
Classic sarcastic Sarah Vowell
I happen to like Sarah's voice, but if you've never heard it, you need to listen to the sample, as some peole find it jarring.
This is less a comedy than a very well researched, thoughtful history of three assasins of presidents. I really enjoyed it, and it had some humor to it.
I wish I could do 4.5 starts, because I reserve 5 for the absolute best.
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11 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Gerald
- 09-11-05
Listen before buying
Pretty good material and well written but never should have been read by the author. Her voice is totally annoying especailly her insufferable proclivity to put whole phrases in the middle of very long sentences into questioning inflectives...if it's a question, ask the damn question, if it's not, stop making it sound like one. About one third through it and not sure if I can make it. Please, please, please, listen before you buy!
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7 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Todd
- 05-04-05
Extremely enjoyable, yet disappointing
As I expected, I really enjoyed this book, but I was surprised to find that I was also disappointed. The reason? I listened to this after Sarah's other audiobook "The Party Cloudy Patriot" so the bar was set too high. You can read my review of TPCP for more details, but to summarize it, TPCP transcended the audiobook form to far outshine the printed.
When another Sarah Vowell book came out, I was excited. When I read the cast list for "Assassination Vacation," I was even more excited. When I saw that Michael Giacchino, who does the music for two of my favorite TV shows, Lost and Alias, and also composed the music for "The Incredibles," did the music, I was incredibly excited. I was expecting a treat on par with TPCP. AV ended up being entirely different, but still wonderful in its own way.
I found the music to be wholly unremarkable. It was generic-sounding strings played in the background at the beginning and end of each section. In comparison to most other audiobooks, it was more than adequate. However, held up next to the excellent music in TPCP by They Might Be Giants, it pales in comparison.
Perhaps because they are much less plentiful than in TPCP, I didn't enjoy the celebrity voices as much. Looking at the cover, you are lead to believe they have a starring role. This is not the case. However, I am extremely glad they were there. Hearing the words of presidents and assassins in the author's mousy voice would have been jarring.
Once I got past my TPCP-wrought disappointment and found a better comparison, I found an extremely enjoyable book. A better book to compare this to would be "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. Both books tell history in an interesting way, but they also relate anecdotes about how the author gathered this historical knowledge. This serves to make the history more tangible and real.
In summary, as long as you are not expecting another TPCP, you will find this book very enjoyable.
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5 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Susan Squier
- 06-25-07
Vowell is Vonderful
This book was a joy to listen to, not only for Sarah Vowell's wonderfuly, quirky, and satisfyingly dissatisfied-with-our-current-administration perspective, but for the great introduction to our lesser known presidential assassins (and even those well known presidents' lesser known stories) And I say "introduction" even though I did go to high school, because once you've listened to them in this way, you actually feel like you've been introduced to them, and developed an interest in them, for the first time. And then of course there is Vowell's completely fabulous delivery. Having her talking in my ear while I weeded the garden, cleaned the house, and walked my dog was a total joy. I actually PROLONGUED any task I was doing, I was having so much fun. Thank you, Sarah, and thank you, Audible. MORE Sarah Vowell please!
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2 people found this helpful