‘Assassination Vacation’ a killer read

What it is: To put it briefly, this is a book about three presidential assassinations. Sounds like the perfect light summer read, right?

Never fear, there’s nothing laborious about “Assassination Vacation,” Sarah Vowell’s witty and weird exploration of three long-ago leaders (Presidents Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley) and their assassins (John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau and Leon Czolgosz, respectively). With her dead-on wisecracks, quirky personal asides and eye-opening insights, Vowell makes just about any subject intriguing, and she’s got a lot to work with here.

What it’s all about: Fascinated by the presidents and their killers she regards as linked in some essential way (“The egomania required to be president or a presidential assassin makes the two types brothers of a sort,” she writes), Vowell set out on a long and winding road trip to visit the landmarks associated with the major players in these presidential deaths. That’s how she wound up writing about places as diverse as the hallowed Lincoln Memorial, the harsh Fort Jefferson and the bizarre Mutter Museum (which displays, among other oddities, a “piece of John Wilkes Booth”), not to mention more old cemeteries than you’d care to count. Along the way, she fills us in on the historical context of each president and his murder.

Why we like it: I’m one of those lazy types who loves to learn fascinating things, but only if the lesson is sugarcoated with a good story, compelling characters and a few laughs. Vowell has the knack.

To be perfectly frank, before reading “Assassination Vacation,” I couldn’t even dredge President Garfield’s first name from my memory (it’s James, in case you’re like me). And to say that my knowledge of the political corruption in New York that surrounded Garfield’s election (Boss Conkling? Custom House kickbacks? Anyone?) was sketchy would be putting it generously. As for McKinley, I’d forgotten he’d even been assassinated, and I couldn’t have pronounced the name of his killer, Leon Czolgosz, on a bet. (It’s like “Shoal-gosh,” if you’re interested.)

If you have a boring commute or a long car trip ahead of you, I highly recommend the audiobook version of “Assassination Vacation.” Vowell, a regular contributor to public radio’s “This American Life” who also was the voice of invisible teenager Violet in Pixar’s “The Incredibles,” reads her work with a distinctive sound and singular inflection that only adds to the hilarity. It also teaches you the proper pronunciation of names like “Czolgosz.”

Thanks to Vowell’s book, I not only have hours of entertainment to remember fondly, but also a refreshed grasp of important events in American history, some of which have interesting parallels to today’s political circumstances. Plus, I’ll always know where to go if I want to see a piece of John Wilkes Booth’s thorax.