Event

Sarah Vowell speaks at Town Hall Seattle

SARAH VOWELL
Monday, March 28 at 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall Seattle
Presented by ELLIOTT BAY BOOK COMPANY. An author who has known Seattle and Elliott Bay since well before she was an author she knew our children's section castle from family trips over from Montana Sarah Vowell makes this most welcome return with her newest unique take on the American story. In Unfamiliar Fishes (Riverhead), Sarah Vowell looks at U.S. history (and its usual versions of such) and turns things on their head. For all the clamor about 1776, she points out, it's the year 1898 that marks an overlooked watershed year, as the imperial urge beyond continental boundaries was asserted. Guam, Puerto Rico, and Hawai'i were colonized, and Cuba and the Philippines invaded. Sarah Vowell hones in on the story of Hawai'i, looking in close, wry, open-eyed, and questioning ways at how an independent society was first Christianized, then out and out overthrown by a motley group acting in the name of the land of the free. Hawai'i's place in American imagination and lore is also considered, all the way up to the inauguration in 2009 of our first Hawai'ian born president. As with her popular previous books The Wordy Shipmates, Assassination Vacation, Partly Cloudy Patriot, and more Sarah Vowell scores big points for her history, and has readers smiling much of the way. $5 tickets are available at Elliott Bay, www.brownpapertickets.com, or at 1.800.838.3006 starting February 26. Town Hall Seattle is at 1119 Eighth Avenue (at Seneca). For more information on this evening, please call Elliott Bay at 206.624.6600.