Finished reading: An Abundance of Katherines by John Green 📚 ★★★

Seems like all John Green books are alike. My daughter was surprised that I read John Green because it is all teen fiction. I don’t need to read more than 2 books I have read already. That said I really liked his non-fiction “Anthropocene reviewed”

I like John Green’s excellent writing. His novels are well written and are a good read including this one but, my favorite is his book “Anthropocene reviewed” and the eponymous podcast.

Finished reading: Turtles All the Way Down by John Green 📚

Actually DNF. It started out very well but became too violent and I didn’t want to keep reading.

Finished reading: Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor 📚

Assassination Vacation

Assassination Vacation was my second Sarah Vowell book. It was so entertaining and educational. The book is about Sarah’s travels to visit many locations that were center stage as well as little sideshows in the assassinations of three sitting U.S. Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, and William McKinley. She makes this dry political history into something very interesting. The book is so full of facts that I definitely need to read (listen to) it again.

Here are some (not all) interesting facts that were unknown to me before reading this book.

  • Presidents #17, 21, and 26 were murdered after the Civil War in a span of 45 years from 1865 to 1901.
  • Coincidentally, President Lincoln's son Robert Todd Lincoln was nearby at all these assassinations.
  • Eventhough, President Lincoln is revered as God these days, there were quite a number of people who hated him when he was alive.
  • Garfield assassin, Charles Guiteau was a member of Oneida Community, a utopian commune. This cult believed in complex marriage, where every man was married to every woman and other weird things like male continence, mutual criticism and ascending fellowhip. Read more about Oneida on Wikipedia.
Here is a passage from the book that I liked and represents Sarah's writing style.
While technically Maryland remained in the Union during the Civil War, it was the border state, a schizophrenic no-man's land with the North at its door and the South in its heart.

Listen to its state song. Sung to the tune of the German Christmas carol “O Tannenbaum”, “Maryland, My Maryland”, was written as the Civil was breaking out in 1861. The first line goes, “The desot’s heel is on thy shore.” Who is the despot? The new president, Lincoln, who it’s worth remembering, had to sneak into Washington for his inauguration so as to avoid the assassins waiting to jump him in Baltimore, a city which, in the song, is rhymed with “patriotic gore”, commemorating the blood spilled on its streets on April 19, 1861, when a mob of local secessionists attacked a Massachusetts regiment passing through town. “Maryland, My Maryland”, the song says, “spurns the Northen scum!” The song also calls for seceding from the Union, to stand by its sister Virginia, going as far as to allude to that state’s motto, Sic Semper tyrannis:

Virginia should not call in vain, Maryland! She meets her sisters on the plain– Sic semper! ‘tis the proud refrain

Sic semper, of course, was the proud refrain hollered by Maryland’s own John Wilkes Booth after making good on shooting the aforementioned “despot” Lincoln at war’s end. One might think that a state song hinting at presidential assassination would have eerie echoes when the state’s native son assassinated said president and therefore it might be headed for the title of “state song emeritus”, the dustbin into which Virginia herself tossed its racist favorite “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny”. But “Maryland, My Maryland” did not become the official state song until 1939. Despite the occasional nice try to ditch it, it remains the state song to this day.

Go here to listen to this same passage from the audiobook. She continues this thought a little further and connects John Wilkes Booth to Tim McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber to an obscure magazine called Southern Partisan to the Attorney General of USA, John Ashcraft.

If you have never heard Sarah speak, you must do it. She has a very peculiar style.

Wump of Mr. Gump

I made a post about Dr. Suess' One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish sometime last year. It is still one of the most read books in the house. Here is another one of my favorite passages (poems) from the book:

Bump! Bump! Bump! Did you ever ride a Wump? We have a Wump with just one hump.

But we know a man called Mr. Gump. Mr. Gump has a seven hump Wump. So… if you like to go Bump! Bump! just jump on the hump of the Wump of Mr. Gump.

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

Calling all Calvin and Hobbes fans… The biggest and most complete Calvin and Hobbes compilation is about to be released in a couple of weeks. Pre-order your own copy of The Complete Calvin and Hobbes.

Thanks to Patrix for his post about it.

P.S. The same book is available at Buy.com for a better deal.