Last night I went to BookPeople in downtown Austin to see Sarah Vowell read from her new book, The Wordy Shipmates. I arrived an hour early to find most of the seats already filled. I sat with Sarah from work on uncomfortable folding chairs adjacent to the Adventure/Travel Disaster book section. The entire section could fall under the heading: Idiots Out of Their Element & In Over Their Heads. By the time the author started reading, there was standing room only down the aisles and people sitting "Indian Style" on the floor.
I had seen Sarah on The Daily Show and the Late Show with David Letterman as well as enjoyed her vocal work as Violet Parr in 2004 Pixar movie The Incredibles. I have never read any of her books, but I did read the first chapter of her new book before attending the reading/signing. The subject matter of The Wordy Shipmates, the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 is not what I typically reach for when selecting a book, but her writing style is like listening to the best history teacher not just give you the facts, but weave a tale that includes reasons behind the facts, back stories of the people involved and relating this to what is happening in today's world. She also has a great pessimistic sense of humor that makes me grin like an idiot.
After the reading she had a Q&A session that included questions about the Puritan's view on Sex: Between a husband and a wife it was a pretty good idea because God came up with it, to her views on President Bush: Since he was once the Governor of Texas, someone in the room had to have voted for him more than twice. One audience member questioned her on a bit of minutia she had written years ago and she replied that she was unsure how to answer the question and wished that she knew more about herself.
A wave of humanity lurched forward when the announcement that she would begin signing books was made. BookPeople does not discount, so I decided not to purchase a copy of Sarah's work for her to sign (they would only allow copies purchased at this store to be signed). It will not be signed, but you can get a steep discount if you click on the link below. Buy one of her books; you will be smarter & entertained.
2 comments:
you know, it might be a good idea to support the independent bookstore that supported the author event instead of amazon. Ya think?
Bookstores need to sell copies of the author's books in order to support the author actually going on tour.
Plus as an independent bookstore BookPeople actually contributes to Austin's local economy. Just sayin
I hear what you are saying anonymous and I agree. I never said that I bought the book via Amazon. I posted a link to Amazon for others that might be interested in buying Sarah's book. In this instance I thought that $30 for an author I was unfamiliar with and a subject matter that was outside of my realm of interest was a bit steep of a price at the time. Now that I have signed up for the BookPeople newsletter I will have advanced notice of who is coming to town and be able to plan ahead and better educate myself on both the author and their work and make an informed decision before I decided to drop 1/3 of a C Note for a signed book.
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