THE BABYSITTER :: Liza Rodman

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

It was 2005 when Liza Rodman finally recognized the previously unidentifiable man from her long-recurring nightmares: Tony Costa, a local who often watched Liza and her sister during their summers in Provincetown, Mass. Liza's mother, a young divorcée, spent "most of her free time closing down the various bars and dance clubs with her own revolving door of suitors." She was cruel to Liza, who found solace hanging out with Tony, handyman at their motel and "one of the few kind and gentle adults in [her] life during those turbulent years." Rodman was 10 in 1969, when Tony disappeared. She never knew why, but was about to find out.

When asked what she remembered about Tony, Rodman's mother calmly replied, "I remember he turned out to be a serial killer." A shocked Rodman attempted to confirm they were speaking about the same man and her mother clarified: "Oh, for Christ's sake... don't be so dramatic. He wasn't your babysitter.... He was the handyman." Particularly telling of Rodman's sorrowful childhood: "Yeah, so what.... He didn't kill you, did he?"

A half century after Costa brutally killed several young women (when 1960s free love and ubiquitous runaways made "disappearing" someone seemingly easy), Rodman teams up with author friend Jennifer Jordan for The Babysitter. A haunting account--part memoir, part investigative journalism--of Rodman's childhood and its chilling connection with the Cape Cod Killer, The Babysitter is the astounding story of a vulnerable young girl and the consolation she found with a man who preyed on women.

WE OWN THIS CITY :: Justin Fenton

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

Justin Fenton, Pulitzer Prize-nominated crime and police accountability reporter for the Baltimore Sun, covered protests following Freddie Gray's 2015 death in police custody. Gray, a 25-year-old Black man, was arrested though he had committed no crime, and his murder was an indicator of a nauseating pattern of police malfeasance in Baltimore. We Own This City is Fenton's explosive recounting of years of cover-ups and lies by hard-charging officers handpicked to combat poor crime statistics by targeting violent repeat offenders. A blind eye was turned to these "knockers," whose expanded independence was abused in the most abhorrent of ways, further damaging an already drug-and-violence-weary city.

Authorities struggled to reduce violent crime, leading to desperation and breakdown of discipline that allowed officers to run amok. "The message from up on high was clear. Do whatever it took to stem the tide of violence. Whatever. It. Took." Some officers carried this edict to incredulous extremes, stopping and searching without justification, planting evidence, searching homes, and seizing money and drugs that they would then sell back into the community they were sworn to protect. Perhaps none were more egregious than Sergeant Wayne Jenkins.

Fenton zeroes in on hard-driver Jenkins and the Gun Trace Task Force, meticulously laying out the years they ran roughshod, garnering acclaim for results stemming from their own misdeeds. Tracking Jenkins's history and the FBI investigation into the GTTF, Fenton details the lives ruined and damage caused by both under- and over-policing of Black communities. For anyone who fails to understand why Freddie Gray ran, the Wayne Jenkinses of the world provide a life-or-death rationale. 

THE OFFICER'S DAUGHTER :: Elle Johnson

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

"When I was sixteen, my sixteen-year-old cousin, Karen, had her face blown off at point-blank range by a sawed-off shotgun in a robbery gone awry at a local Burger King in the Bronx. It was early Saturday morning, April 4, 1981." Decades later, Elle Johnson still carries the wounds of her cousin's murder. Not until 2014, when her cousin Warren, Karen's older brother, asks Johnson to write a letter to the parole board encouraging them not to let the gunman free, does she truly begin to process the impact of her loss and upbringing. The result, The Officer's Daughter, is a memoir awash in doubt, anger and loss of innocence, told in the honed voice of a professional television writer and showrunner.

Karen's father was a homicide detective, Johnson's father a parole officer. Not only was Johnson's life filled with lessons learned in law enforcement (which would later influence her writing on such shows as Law & Order and Bosch), but on the night Karen was killed, the author overheard her father, uncle and numerous officers discussing tracking down and killing Karen's murderers. In a tale that begins as a tribute to Karen, Johnson traces her soul-searching, reflecting on the violence and control that pervaded her immediate family.

Johnson writes exquisitely about the conflicting yearnings of punishment and forgiveness as she considers each of the men convicted for Karen's murder. Yet the contemplation of her complex father is the beating heart at the center of this soulful and aptly titled remembrance. 

TRACE :: Rachael Brown

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

Australian crime journalist Rachael Brown's grandparents taught her "questions are a precious way to show care." When Brown discovered seeming contradictions in a cold case that left two brothers without answers for more than three decades, she started asking questions. Brown's inquiry into the brutal murder of Maria James is recounted in Trace, the gripping account of her search for a killer. It's also the name of her acclaimed true-crime podcast, which aired during her investigation, allowing the public to contribute.

Mark and Adam James were boys when their mother was murdered in the home attached to her Melbourne bookshop in June 1980, stabbed 68 times. As Brown pours through old files and the minds of those who worked or had connections to the case, she digs up long-buried horrors. Startling key evidence comes from painful secrets held by those closest to Maria, suggesting either a "huge cock-up" or widespread conspiracy.

Trace is a brilliant and compelling look into a horrific crime that affected countless lives. Brown struggles with the knowledge that reopening such a case takes "haunted people on a rollercoaster ride." It is, indeed, such a ride, emotionally, procedurally and forensically. As the Trace podcast ended without definitive answers, Brown responded to disappointed listeners: "This is not a show, folks. This is someone's death. And I can't invent an ending--it's real-life nonfiction. I want to scream, 'Imagine how the James boys feel?' " Regardless of the ultimate outcome, Brown's work enthralls while never forgetting the burden of care.

STREET SENSE: My desire to read this stemmed from the fact that I like to read and support Australian authors whenever possible. I had not heard of this case or the podcast, but Brown's recitation of both is well worth your time. I didn't speak too much to the plot to avoid spoilers, but whether cock-up or conspiracy, there's enough anger to go around. Maddening.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  I read a quote recently, that asked, 'What if the word "victim" could be redefined into something closer to "hero," recognising that the path some have tread will spare others from the same?

[I picked this quote because it resonated not only within this case but also with much of what our world is dealing with today. A vision of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford leaps to mind, as well as the many others who have been and keep speaking out about the violence perpetrated against them. Heroes, even if we're not very good at listening.]

One more, because this one also resonates:

"Sometimes the truth can never be fully told, because it breaks your heart forever."

COVER NERD SAYS:  This cover has some fantastic elements--the fingerprints on the word "Trace," the puzzle pieces, and, mostly (a surprise to me since I usually dislike them), the subtitle. When I try to consider why it didn't speak to me, I find it too busy and distracting. Each of the three colored puzzle pieces includes additional text and/or photos, there's a blurb in addition to the subtitle (in fairness, any Aussie author would be hard-pressed to resist putting a quote from Helen Garner on their cover). It's overwhelming. Separately, I understand each piece (the podcast tie-in, Helen Garner, publisher name--though that last one gives me pause), but I don't think as a whole they do the cover any favors. I would have lost the photograph, the quote, the podcast line and the publisher name, made the three puzzle pieces black and left Rachael Brown's name in the lower right. THAT makes me want to know what's missing. This cover doesn't let those missing puzzle pieces "breathe." I'm being exceptionally hard on this work, probably because I liked the book so much, so take it all with that grain of salt.

NORCO '80 :: Peter Houlahan

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

Norco '80 is enthrallingly detailed, down to the pencils thrown by opposing counsel in the criminal trial that followed "the most spectacular bank robbery in American history." Despite the depth and breadth recounted by journalist and EMT Peter Houlahan, the urge the book generates in readers to further explore this devastating true crime is impossible to suppress.

Houlahan begins with the not-well-laid plans of the felons (46 counts worth), who instead of seeing themselves as criminals saw themselves as simply needing funds to support their survivalist ideals in the face of the impending apocalypse. How else were they going to get it but to steal it? They were armed to the teeth, sparking a ferociously one-sided firefight that spanned more than 40 miles of crime scene in Riverside County, Calif. Responding law enforcement agencies were vastly overmatched, and the tragic outcome helped prompt a sea change in police weaponry, interagency communications (lack of which resulted in a life-and-death game of "telephone") and mental health support.

The drawn-out capital murder trial was perhaps even more outlandish than the pursuit preceding it, "highlighted" by a judge who took pictures during proceedings as mementos, a sex scandal and the defense continually attempting to "shove... sticks in the spokes of justice," including pinning the crime on a nonexistent man. Houlahan has admirably mined and winnowed the boundless material, and while nonfiction purists might be put off by some liberties taken (e.g., the inner monologue of a dying man), he has compellingly translated a high-octane story to the page without losing traction, leaving the reader satisfied yet craving more.

STREET SENSE: I was woefully and shamefully uneducated about this case. I'll admit, I had not heard of it (despite being California born and bred). Whoever hid it from me deserves a noogie, because holy cats this is a fascinating true story of robbery gone very wrong and the bizarre, drawn-out trial of the surviving perpetrators (I am ashamed to be in the same profession as some of these maroons). It's horrific, yet sometimes so comical you can't believe the truth. My "issues" with the narrative were total nitpicks, though I admit they made me question if other liberties were taken. Either way, well worth the ride.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  In a sea of weird, this may be one of the weirdest, but maybe I simply hold judges to a higher standard than I should:

Later in the trial, an incident occurred that raised eyebrows inside the courtroom and out. Clayton Adams was in the process of cross-examination when he noticed something strange. "No offense intended to the court," Adams protested at the next recess, "but I did want the record to reflect that while I was cross-examining the witness...the Court was, from the bench, photographing jurors." Asked about the incident by a reporter afterwards, Hennigan said, "We've been together a long time. I like having a memento of them." The AP wire story about the incident was headlined "Judge in Robbery-Murder Trial Photographs Jury for Souvenir." A quote...summed up the sentiments of anyone who had been following the proceedings from the start: "For this trial, it's not weird."

COVER NERD SAYS: By the time I was done reading I was in love with this cover--there is a lot that's smart about it. I misinterpreted it at first glance and thus found it a bit misleading. Because I didn't know about the case, "Norco" for some reason gave me thoughts of "narco." Perhaps because the dudes in the picture look a little hippie-druggish, I assumed this was a drug case and wasn't too interested. Usually not a fan of subtitles, in this case it hooked me, because I realized this was a robbery, not all a drug story. The 70s color scheme also totally knocked my socks off and, in no small part, influenced my asking to cover this one for review. Now that I'm educated, I love the whole thing (though to be honest it still gives me a bit of a drug vibe).

ALLIGATOR CANDY :: David Kushner

"Kids grow up hearing fairy tales, but the biggest fairy tale of all, I realized at the age of four, is that life is safe."

David Kushner is an award-winning journalist, having won the New York Press Club award for Best Feature Reporting. He's also contributing editor of Rolling Stone and a prolific writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired, New York Times Magazine, New York, GQ, and Playboy. Kushner's work has also been included in The Best American Crime Reporting, The Best Music Writing, and The Columbia Journalism Review’s Best Business Writing anthologies.

Obviously no stranger to serious topics, Kushner has now mined the depths of his and his family's own painful and tragic past with a new memoir, Alligator Candy. The title refers to the treat four-year-old David asked older brother Jon to bring back from his bike ride through the woods to the nearby convenience store. That was the last time David saw Jon alive.

It is difficult enough, perhaps even impossible, for an adult mind to wrap around such a thing as the loss of a child to abduction and murder. But how is a little boy to understand and deal with it? How can parents survive the ordeal themselves while trying to guide their other children through it intact? Alligator Candy is the soul-baring and heartbreaking account of David's recollection and reexamination of Jon's disappearance and murder and the entire Kushner family's tragically-altered path through the future that resulted.

Growing up in the Florida suburbs, David and his older brothers Jon (11) and Andy (13) had what most other kids growing up in  1970s America had - freedom. "October 28, 1973 began like any other Sunday." By the end of that day, the lives of the Kushners would be forever changed as the family of five became one of four and two loving, smart, generous people were left to pick up their own pieces while at the same time try to keep life going for their two remaining boys.

Unless we've gone through it, and I hope you haven't, none of us knows what this looks like. What this feels like. How you  make your way forward. Reading about how this one family waded their way through the morass was both an educational lesson in humanity and loss, and what felt like an intrusion into a sacred space where outsiders don't belong.

Alligator Candy is written through two lenses. The first is that of David Kushner the adult journalist, who pieces together the facts and circumstances surrounding his brother's disappearance and ultimate death thirty years after it happened, conducting interviews and reviewing police files relating to the crime. The other is David Kushner the son and brother, looking back at his four-year-old self, a lens of confusion and mystery. The Kushner family, a lovely family you can't help but fall in love with, particularly David's parents, couldn't talk about Jon or his murder ("It was too scary," his mother would relate years later), leaving each of them to struggle alone while trying to do their best for the others:

We were once a family in our own solar system, like any family, and then we were cast out of orbit, each of us drifting into our own time and space, occasionally feeling the gravity of one another's pull. I can see my mother coming into my room after another tantrum of mine and rubbing my back, singing a lullaby to comfort me. I don't see my father. I don't see Andy. And before long, my mother isn't there, and my room is silent and dark. Outside my room, there's a windowless hallway with a yellow shag carpet. My parents are in their room at one end. Andy is in his at the other. Jon's room is empty. The doors are shut.

Why read this book, a story of violence, loss, destruction and pain? That's a good question, and one I ask myself when I read books such as this. I think part of it is a feeling of obligation to bear witness. Not just to the Kushner family, but to the world at large. To remember and give name to people who have been lost and have lost, even if we don't know them and will never meet them. To resist the urge to bury one's head in the sand and pretend there is no evil in the world. The other, and perhaps more important, is humanity. It's often easy to lose sight of the fact that people all around us are going through things we may know nothing about. A reminder to be kind, to be gentle, as best we can.

STREET SENSE:  This is not an easy book to read from a subject matter perspective. It is sad and horrible and painful. But it is an easy book to read from a prose and story perspective. Kushner is a no-nonsense writer, but his writing is also quite beautiful and thoughtful. I recommend this book to anyone who has similar feelings as those I expressed in the paragraph above. It's very well done.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  It was the early seventies. The Age of Aquarius had given way to the "Free to Be You and Me" generation. We were unbuckled and unrestrained, free from seat belts and helmets or meticulously organized playdates. Our parents let us climb over the seats of our smoke-filled station wagon, puffing on candy cigarettes and, on road trips, sleeping way in the back. When we had a stretch of hours to play, they let us put the free in free time, wandering off to learn and explore and find adventures. They shared our innocence. They hadn't learned to be afraid.

COVER NERD SAYS:  I hadn't heard about this book when I saw the cover and it immediately drew me in. Even with the bright font colors and the simple image of the bike wheel, there was something dark about it that I can't even put my finger on. Perhaps that black background. I also like that there is nothing gratuitous or blatantly violent about the cover. The book includes evil, but it's not all about the evil. It's about good people struggling with the repercussions of evil. Whatever the reason this attracted me, it did its job well, and I appreciate this cover for its simplicity. Well done.

THE MIDNIGHT ASSASSIN :: Skip Hollandsworth

"As the journalists once wrote, it is a story worthy of Edgar Allan Poe, a rip-roaring, multilayered Gothic saga of madness and intrigue, panic and paranoia, beautiful women and baying bloodhounds, and flabbergasting plot twists and sensational courtroom drama."

Those words are from the Prologue to The Midnight Assassin: Panic, Scandal, and the Hunt for America's First Serial Killer, written by Skip Hollandsworth, award-winning executive editor of Texas Monthly magazine. The Prologue is about three pages long, and I was hooked to the gills by the time I finished it.

We all know about Jack the Ripper. But how many of us have heard about The Midnight Assassin, a killer who terrorized Austin, Texas four years before Jack got his start? I hadn't, which doesn't appear to be a rarity seeing as this spookily-monikered madman seems to have been left out of most Texas history books.

He will be unknown no more. In this astoundingly well-researched account, Hollandsworth takes us back to 1884-1888 Austin, a city on the verge of morphing from a small western town into a cosmopolitan destination location. The local police, politicians, and citizenry were terrified and flummoxed by a vicious and incredibly stealthy killer (killers?) and couldn't seem to do anything to stop him.

Hollandsworth first heard of the story in 1998, and he has been researching it on and off since that time. The journalist's attention to detail and investigative prowess are evident, as 1880s Austin and its people, politics, and crime are written into vibrant life.

The killer began his reign of terror in the black community, breaking into servants' quarters to bludgeon the occupant/s. Although men were often knocked out of commission, it was apparent women were the killer's targets. And, of course, black men were quick to be blamed, even on the odd occasion the attacker was described as white:

Surely, they said, the German girl, overcome with fright, had to have been mistaken about the skin color of the man she had seen. The string of attacks almost certainly had to be the work of blacks - "ruffians on the rampage," one man called them - who had retrograded.

Although the city was in general turmoil, it's not difficult to imagine how things ramped up as the Assassin's M.O. became more gruesome and, even more so, once a white woman was attacked. Indeed, although the story of the murder spree itself is riveting, the impact the Midnight Assassin had on local politics and race relations is an even more fascinating (and often equally terrifying) part of the story. Terrifying because it often felt like so little has changed since 1884:

As a result of such bias, young black men were constantly blamed for all sorts of crimes simply because they were young and black.

Was that line written about 1880s Texas or 2016 America?

The Midnight Assassin is a compelling look at the state of politics, policing, race relations (sorely lacking) and criminology (same) in the 1880s. The story was treated as one of the "great American murder mysteries of the late nineteenth century," and was front page news across the country. It was, perhaps, the first time in recorded history the country was faced with a serial killer. Which really makes it all the more strange this killer is not more well known.

As desperate as Austin was to put a stop to the murders, the efforts of the local police and politicians were almost a comedy of errors. I almost felt sorry for the mayor, who could not seem to make a right move to save his life, even when he tried to do the right thing. More often than not, however, he was caught up in the political ramifications of a killer in his midst as he was trying to bring prosperity to Austin (and save his own skin). He reminded me a bit of Mayor Vaughn from Jaws, desperate to save his city on the verge of its coming-out party, and to hell with the risks.

Who was the Midnight Assassin? Was he (her? them?) connected with Jack the Ripper? Hollandsworth does a fantastic job keeping the narrative flowing and bringing the crimes and location to life with incredible attention to detail. Though it reads with a bit more of a reporter's sensibility than a storyteller's, The Midnight Assassin is a tale well worth your time.

STREET SENSE:  Recommended for fans of true crime and/or crime fiction, serial killer sagas, investigative journalism, and American history. Hollandsworth's efforts at historic accuracy help make this a really stellar work. I realize I've said it more than once, but the level of research really did boggle my mind. The book also includes various photographs and documents Hollandsworth came across in his investigation, which were fun and interesting additions that helped with visualization even though the author's words were more than sufficient.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  It has taken me years to put the story together, looking for facts hidden away in faded newspaper articles and in old scrapbooks, in the crumbling pages of diaries and letters, in long-forgotten records boxed up in the back storage rooms of libraries and government offices, and in files at the state's former lunatic asylum, the one-imposing limestone fortress that loomed over the northern edge of Austin. Some details about the killings were discovered in abandoned sections of cemeteries, the tombstones nearly covered by time. Others were provided by grandchildren and great-grandchildren of residents involved in the Midnight Assassin's murder spree. And then there were records that should have been readily available but had curiously - tantalizingly - disappeared.

COVER NERD SAYS:  I will admit that it was the title that first caught my eye. What's not to pick up when you see "MIDNIGHT ASSASSIN" on the front? Nothing, I say. The cover art doesn't knock my socks off, but it definitely conveys, along with the title, a creepy air that I really like.  This cover did its job, and it was definitely a smart move to highlight the title.

ASSASSINATION VACATION :: Sarah Vowell

Sarah Vowell is a wacky genius and I adore her. Perhaps others voluntarily vacation on road trips of Presidential death, but I'm betting no one does it with the humor and erudition of Ms. Vowell. In her capable hands, assassination isn't just educational, it's downright entertaining. I would pay good money to be her road trip sidekick.

Assassination Vacation takes readers with Vowell as she (and various trouper friends and family members) takes a fascinating and morbid trip through our country's assassinated and their assassins - Lincoln and Booth, Garfield and Guiteau, McKinley and Czolgosz. While we all likely know much of the Lincoln/Booth story, I (somewhat shamefully) admit I have not read or remembered anything of our other two leaders and their respective endings since high school. (I feel a little better when Vowell herself proclaims, "The most famous thing ever said about President James A. Garfield is about how nobody has any idea who the hell he was.") No matter how well you think you know any of these presidents and/or their deaths, I'm betting you'll learn something new on this trip.

There are many reasons to herald Assassination Vacation (as borne out by the 100+ highlights in my copy), so I'll share just a few that made it a top-notch read for me. The first is that Vowell does not paint the assassins as mere cardboard cutouts of a villain. Instead, she takes us through the killers' journeys, both before and after the assassinations, and even offers some basis for empathy:

Of course talking about the murders of previous presidents is going to open the door to discussing the current president. That’s what I like to call him, “the current president.” I find it difficult to say or type his name, George W. Bush. I like to call him “the current president” because it’s a hopeful phrase, implying that his administration is only temporary...So if I can summon this much bitterness toward a presidential human being, I can sort of, kind of see how this amount of bile or more, teaming up with disappointment, unemployment, delusions of grandeur and mental illness, could prompt a crazier narcissistic creep to buy one of this country’s widely available handguns. Not that I, I repeat, condone that. Like Lincoln, I would like to believe the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Then again, he said that before he got shot. 

Second, Vowell is exhaustive in her travels and knowledge, so we get unusual nuggets of information, told with the enthusiasm of someone who obviously adores her subject matter. The assassinations are discussed, for the most part, in separate sections, and Vowell visits major and tangential locations relevant to the lives of the presidents, their killers, and individuals in their respective peripheries who impacted them during or near the time of the assassinations. Places of death, former residences, getaway routes and locations, travels of the presidential bodies (dead and undead by a hair), monuments big and small, and museums containing various body parts and other "memorabilia," are all stops on the way. I was amazed by some of the creepy things people saved from these "occasions," including pieces of presidential pate (which is a great band name; you're welcome, feel free to use it).

Third, Vowell's own fears, strengths, and fantastically warped humor are infused into the story, and some of best entries are her own thoughts on a topic, or interactions with the interesting and like-minded folk who work at or curate the locations she visits. At times almost painfully shy, Vowell comes alive in these instances:

But when I’m around strangers, I turn into a conversational Mount St. Helens. I’m dormant, dormant, quiet, quiet, old-guy loners build log cabins on the slopes of my silence and then, boom, it’s 1980. Once I erupt, they’ll be wiping my verbal ashes off their windshields as far away as North Dakota.

Lest you fear Vowell's humor is inappropriate for tales of murder, never fear. While she  can find humor in any topic, however morbid, she also takes her work quite seriously, as evidenced by her retort to an "annoyingly upbeat" tourist who exclaims "Cheer up, everybody, we're part of history!":

'Sir,' I said, 'except for the people who were there that one day they discovered the polio vaccine, being part of history is rarely a good idea. History is one war after another with a bunch of murders and natural disasters in between.' 

So true. But if my choices are to laugh or cry, I choose to laugh along with Sarah Vowell.

STREET SENSE: I highly recommend Assassination Vacation to anyone who loves history, murder, laugh-out-loud reading, and fascinating nuggets of information perfect for an upcoming cocktail party. For example, I had no idea there was a bizarre (coincidental?) connection between Robert Todd Lincoln, Abe's son, and all three assassins/assassinations, as well as Booth's brother. I didn't spoil that story here, but the book is worth the read for that tidbit alone.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  Please. I actually giggle when he tries to steel me for seeing the re-created 1920s embalming room, as if I’m not wearing Bela Lugosi hair clips; as if I didn’t just buy a book for my nephew called Frankenstein and Dracula Are Friends; as if I was never nicknamed Wednesday (as in Addams); as if in eighth-grade English class, assigned to act out a scene from a biography, when all the other girls had chosen Queen Elizabeth or Anne Frank, I hadn’t picked Al Capone and staged the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre with toy machine guns and wadded-up red construction paper thrown everywhere to signify blood; as if I’m not here to see the replica of Abraham Lincoln’s casket; as if I’m not the kind of person who would visit the freaking Museum of Funeral Customs in the first place. (Did I mention I love Sarah Vowell?)

COVER NERD SAYS:  The covers of Vowell's books are all of the same theme and look like creepy little dioramas. That being said, there's something about the photographic method employed, small figurines against a relevant, soft-focused background, that is aesthetically pleasing (though still a little creepy).  I've actually grown to really appreciate them, maybe because Vowell is tiny herself and I can't help but picture her barging into the diorama to ask questions and share her humorous insights.