(From the publisher) In The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Sarah Vowell travels through the American past and, in doing so, investigates the dusty, bumpy roads of her own life. In this insightful and funny collection of personal stories Vowell—widely hailed for her inimitable narratives on public radio's This American Life—ponders a number of curious questions: Why is she happiest when visiting the sites of bloody struggles like Salem or Gettysburg? Why do people always inappropriately compare themselves to Rosa Parks? Why is a bad life in sunny California so much worse than a bad life anywhere else? What is it about the Zen of foul shots? And, in the title piece, why must doubt and internal arguments haunt the sleepless nights of the true patriot?

Her essays confront a wide range of subjects, themes, icons, and historical moments: Ike, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton; Canadian Mounties and German filmmakers; Tom Cruise and Buffy the Vampire Slayer; twins and nerds; the Gettysburg Address, the State of the Union, and George W. Bush's inauguration.

The result is a teeming and engrossing book, capturing Vowell's memorable wit and her keen social commentary.

About the Author

	© Marion Ettlinger

Author and social observer Sarah Vowell is best known for her monologues and documentaries for public radio's This American Life.A contributing editor for the program since 1996, she has written about everything from her father's homemade cannon and her obsession with the Godfather films to the New Hampshire primary and her Cherokee ancestors' forced march on the Trail of Tears. She has been a staple of TAL's popular live shows around the country, for which The New York Times has commended her "funny querulous voice and shrewd comic delivery." Thanks to her first book, Radio On: A Listener's Diary (St. Martin's Press), Newsweek made her its Rookie of the Year for nonfiction in 1997, calling her "a cranky stylist with talent to burn." Reviewing her second book, the essay collection Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World (Simon & Schuster), People Magazine said, "Wise, witty and refreshingly warm-hearted, Vowell's essays on American history, pop culture and her own family reveal the bonds holding together a great, if occasionally weird, nation."

As a critic and reporter, Vowell's writing has appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines, including Esquire, GQ, Artforum, The Los Angeles Times, The Village Voice, Spin and McSweeney's. As a columnist, she has covered education for Time; American culture for Salon.com; and pop music for the San Francisco Weekly, for which she won a 1996 Music Journalism Award. She has taught writing and art history at Sarah Lawrence College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago respectively.

Vowell has performed her comic monologues at the Aspen Comedy Festival, Amsterdam's Crossing Borders Festival, and Seattle's Foolproof Comedy Festival. She has appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Nightline, which aired her appeal to television producers not to commemorate Frank Sinatra's death with her least favorite song, My Way, on the day Sinatra died. Sarah Vowell's most recent book is Partly Cloudy Patriot (Simon & Schuster). A native of Oklahoma and Montana, and a long-time resident of Chicago, Vowell currently lives in New York City.