Book reviews for February 28th

Sarah Vowell loves history and giving her opinion. She inserts her witty comments through out this book about the Puritans coming to America and our vanilla, or white washed version of history. Her comment on page 21, "...Americans have learned history from exaggerated popular art for as long as anyone can remember." Vowell and I are about the same age, so her pop culture references make a lot of sense to me. Her very first paragraph sucked me in to the book, "The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief. And by dangerous I don't mean thought-provoking. I mean: might get people killed." The conflict among the Puritans was really fascinating. The trials that removed Roger Williams from the flock to start over in Rhode Island was really fascinating, especially his continued correspondence with John Winthrop.
The story of Anne Hutchinson and the Native American population is fascinating, too. Many eloquent and inspiring writings came from flawed individual, which we all happen to be. By trying to gloss over the dilemmas and trials these people went through it keeps those willing to learn from history intellectually hog-tied. I expect people to have flaws and to live in that shade of grey. I also expect them to try their best to overcome those flaws and to treat others as they wish to be treated themselves.
I, thoroughly, enjoyed reading this book and I need to grab a copy for my shelf soon. If you like history infused with some frequent barbs and jabs of sarcastic wit, you might like this book, too.


The story of Molly a descendant of the Mohawk tribe who has been told the folktales of her tribe. One of these tales is about the Skeleton Man who eats an entire family save one girl. Molly becomes entangled in a modern version of this tale when her parents mysteriously disappear and a man who claims to be her uncle comes to take her in. Molly is a dreamer who has a spirit guide in the form of a rabbit that helps her. This story maintains a sinister and creepy tone throughout, so don't expect anything lighthearted. The author has a moment when Molly goes to see the school counselor to make a somewhat subtle statement against the use of drugs like Ritalin.

Overall, the book is an interesting creepy tale of Mohawk folk legends mixed with the modern day.



This book is a series of essays about ideas and places that interest Sarah Vowell. She infuses her stories with comparisons between her staunch Democratic beliefs and her parents' staunch Republican beliefs, while remember through the bickering that they have shared memories and love one another. She also speaks of her relationship with her fraternal twin sister, Amy, and some of its dichotomies. In the essay titled "Wonder Twins" she brings up the cartoon characters that always drove me nuts as a kid...well, they still do. "Form of a gorilla"..."Form of a ice"...there powers just plain stunk. ARGH!
She also has a reverence for the National Parks (I say that realizing she is an atheist and the definition has more than a religious meaning). Her angst over politics is presented very strongly throughout. Her essay Cowboys vs. Mounties that talks about the polite Canadians is a truly amusing insight. In her explaining why she loves to visit National Parks and historical sites of some of the most heinous parts of our American history she explains some of why I love to do history vacations, "So if I have gleaned anything useful from reading and daytripping through the tribulations of the long dead, it's to count my blessings, to try and quit bellyaching, buck up."
I thought this book was a good read from someone who loves history, as do I, and she knows a ton more than I do about it. She has come to some different conclusions on some things, or similar conclusions that she expresses more harshly than I would state them, but she has done the research to back most of them.


The book was a sad glimpse into the world of Fundamental Mormons. Brent Jeffs gives his account of how life with 3 moms and several siblings was mostly chaos. His father, a Vietnam vet, suffered from PTSD, which was exacerbated by feuding sister wives and the sheer quantity of people who clambored for his attention. Brent speaks of his memories of abuse by Warren Jeffs, who assisted by his brothers, raped Brent. Brent's family is forced out of the community due to harboring gentiles, which happen to be Brent's older brothers who had left the church. The view of how families were created and torn apart was disheartining. The machinations of the church hiearchy for control and their thumping the word "Obedience" into everything gave them a malleable and frightened group that was ineffectual at protecting themselves, or their children from abuse. Brent later is part of a lawsuit against Warren Jeffs and as other "Lost Boys" are interviewed the extent to which Warren Jeffs violated the community begins to paint an ominous picture of life among the FLDS.
The odd thing to me on the literary aspect of the book was the word usage. The book was surprisingly sophisticated except for the expletives sprinkled throughout. The expletives made a sort of since coming from a young man with little education and having done an enormous amount of drugs in his life. It wasn't until the end that I saw that he thanked the female writer that assisted him. Then the mix of grammar styles made since. The more feminine-sophisticated word choices made sense.
The book is worth reading to explain to people that blind obedience is a recipe for disaster and that the math does not work for polgamy to be successful.

More to read and review soon! Later, gators!