Ectoplasmosis: Let me say right from the start that I am a huge Sarah Vowell fan. Her book Assassination Vacation, from which this is excerpted, was the first by her that I read and from there I’ve devoured everything she has written. Her work, part history part travelogue, are made that much better by dint of the fact that she has an extraordinary ability to convey her enthusiasm for her subjects. The history of presidential assassination my seem compelling but the reader is all the more interested because Miss Vowell is interested.

Susan Chien, also a fan, animates one of those many moments from Vowell’s journeys, detailing the complicated and terrifying traditions of a New England bed and breakfast namely being forced to take one’s morning sustenance with total strangers in another stranger’s house.