Dear Sarah Vowell

I love your writing. I think you are witty and charming and the only thing better than reading you is hearing you read your own work. But most of the time, it’s me reading your books. And most of the time, I’m doing it at night before bed. So I’m begging you, please please please break the next book into chapters, preferably of about 15 pages or less.

Your new book, The Wordy Shipmates, is a delight. But while there are occasional breaks on the occasional page, they are usually few and far between — 30 pages or more. Husband believes it’s fine to stop anywhere you want in a book — mid-sentence let alone mid-chapter. However, I am a firm believer that authors put chapters in books as a notice to readers that they can stop reading. You have none, Sarah. I can’t stop. It’s two, three in the morning and I’m still reading because there is only one chapter in the whole book.

So please, for the sake of my health and marriage (“Lisa, turn out the light already!”), put chapters in your next book. Or at least the occasional asterisk between sections so I know it’s okay to put the book down and turn the light off.

Thanks.

PS: Next time you’re in town, come for dinner. We think you’d be a gas around the dining table.

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