Oh! Haveth Ye a Happy Day

I was born on Thanksgiving Day just over twenty years ago, and so the holiday has always been my favorite, despite the inevitable awkwardness of partisan politics and the looming fright of my mother’s jello mold salad. Although I don’t read much about history, I make an exception for books about the Pilgrims, turkey, and sea-tossed religious persecuties making their way to a new life. Also, how cool is it that the Massacusetts pilgrims designed a state seal with a naked guy on it?!?!

This year’s Birthday Book is Sarah Vowell's newest work of historical humor, The Wordy Shipmates, her personalized investigation into the lives, government, and bickering of the Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans, in particular John Winthrop, Roger Williams, and Anne Hutchinson. Before you nod off, remember this isn't any old history writer we're talking about here--it's Sarah Vowell, who time and again accomplishes the admirable Readability Trifecta of Smart/Funny/Unforgettable.

Vowell, an avowed “history geek,” has written previously about presidential assassination (Assassination Vacation) and myriad other topics of (mostly) American history (The Partly Cloudy Patriot). As in her previous works, the strength of The Wordy Shipmates is in her ability to find personal connections between those long gone and her own life and to comment on the past through the skeptical and witty lens of the present. She also has a knack for weaving in historical details that most of us would never encounter, unless we, too, spent hours combing through primary documents, and discovered events like The Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

Perhaps the best thing Vowell does for history in The Wordy Shipmates is humanize the lives and words of forebearers we might otherwise recall only in passing, as the part of Early U.S. History 101 where the cranky people with all the rules spoiled the fun for their neighbors. The Puritans were much more literary and intellectual than most of realize, and their ideas are worthy of our reconsideration. Delicious food for thought!