The Wordy Shipmates
by Sarah Vowell
List Price:
Our Price: $1.91
You Save: $24.04 (93%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Sarah VowellEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-10-07
ISBN: 1594489998
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Book Reviews of The Wordy Shipmates
Book Review: "Jokey" history with constant interruptions
Summary: 3 Stars
Sarah Vowell specializes in what might be called "jokey popular history." She's serious about her subject but she tries to wrap it up in a -- well duh! style of writing interspersed with many personal asides, some relevant, some not.
Here, she writes about the founding of the colonies of Massachusetts and Rhode Island and the colorful characters who inspired them. This quickly draws her into abstruse theological differences that today seem highly irrelevant. But she succeeds in demonstrating that the ideas of men like John Winthrop and Roger Williams did much to form the kind of country the United States eventually became -- and continue to live on today, although much altered by history.
Though she admires both men, she also judges them by 21st century moral standards and finds both wanting. Of course, the ultimate blot on the record of these fine-speaking avatars of Christian morality was the appaling massacre of Native Americans at Mystic Fort when women and children were burned alive.
I found the material interesting but the author's radiophonic "This American Life" interruptions were often intrusive. She tends to ramble. One and a half thumbs up for this one.
Authors Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Authors Books
Bloomsbury Recalledby Quentin Bell
Columbia University Press; Published: 1997-01-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.38
Price in other shops:
William Tyndale: A Biographyby David Daniell
Yale University Press; Published: 1994-11-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $62.92
Neither Saints Nor Sinners: Writing the Lives of Women in Spanish Americaby Kathleen Ann Myers
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2003-08-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.00
Price in other shops:
Storm of Steel (Penguin Classics)by Ernst Jünger
Penguin Classics; Published: 2004-05-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops:
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Lifeby C.S. Lewis
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Published: 1995-11-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.86
Price in other shops:
Roughing It (The Penguin American Library)by Mark Twain
Penguin Classics; Published: 1981-12-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.65
Price in other shops:
Life Is So Good: One Man's Extraordinary Journey through the 20th Century and How he Learned to Read at Age 98by George Dawson, Richard Glaubman
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2001-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.75
Price in other shops:
Shakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives)by Bill Bryson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops:
The Professor and the Madman CDby Simon Winchester
HarperAudio; Published: 2005-10-04; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $8.48
Price in other shops:
Alexander Hamilton: A Lifeby Willard Sterne Randall
Harper; Published: 2003-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.91
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: with Related Documents (Bedford Series in History & Culture)by Mary Rowlandson
Bedford/St. Martin's; Published: 1997-02-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.05
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White Houseby Jon Meacham
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2009-04-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.97
Price in other shops:
The American Puritans: Their Prose and PoetryColumbia University Press; Published: 1982-04-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $31.00
Price in other shops:
Radio On: A Listener's Diaryby Sarah Vowell
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 1997-12-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.27
Price in other shops:
The Partly Cloudy Patriotby Sarah Vowell
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2002-09-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.70
Price in other shops:
Assassination Vacationby Sarah Vowell
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2005-03-29; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.00
Price in other shops:
Take the Cannoli : Stories From the New Worldby Sarah Vowell
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2001-04-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.69
Price in other shops:
The Partly Cloudy Patriotby Sarah Vowell
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2003-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.89
Price in other shops:
Assassination Vacationby Sarah Vowell
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2006-01-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.74
Price in other shops:
Unfamiliar Fishesby Sarah Vowell
Riverhead Hardcover; Published: 2011-03-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.00
Price in other shops: