Alexandra Petri's US History

Important American Documents (I Made Up)

By: Alexandra Petri

Narrated by: Alexandra Petri

A witty, absurdist satire of the last 500 years, Alexandra Petri's US History is the fake textbook you never knew you needed!

Alexandra Petri's US History contains a lost (invented!) history of America. (A history for people disappointed that the only president whose weird sex letters we have is Warren G. Harding.) Petri's "historical fan fiction" draws on real events and completely absurd fabrications to create a laugh-out-loud, irreverent takedown of our nation's complicated past.

On Petri's deranged timeline, John and Abigail Adams try sexting, the March sisters from Little Women are sixty feet tall, and Susan Sontag goes to summer camp. Nearly eighty short, hilarious pieces span centuries of American history and culture. Nikola Tesla's friends stage an intervention when he falls in love with a pigeon. The characters from Sesame Street invade Normandy. And Mark Twain—who famously said reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated—offers a detailed account of his undeath, in which he becomes a zombie.

This side-splitting work of historical humor shows why Alexandra Petri has been hailed as a "genius," a "national treasure," and "one of the funniest writers alive."

©2023 Alexandra Petri (P)2023 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Hilarious and bizarrely educational

Alexandra Petri writes a column for the Washington Post, where she regularly makes me laugh, sigh, and cringe at the goings-on in the world. In short, I was a rabid fan before I bought this book. However, while istening to this book, I heard her speak for the first time! Now I will forever read her columns and hear them in her actual voice (a GOOD thing). This book was amazing in two ways--first, it is very, very funny, but in a nerdy kind of way. It helps if you know a little about history and literature, or are willing to do a quick Google so you're in on the jokes. Second, for a book containing so much made-up history, it was pretty darned educational. I was constantly thinking "that fact must be made up" and Googling to check (often finding that it was, indeed, the part that was NOT made up). Alexandra has a way of mocking events while not substantially changing the record of what happened. While I loved hearing the book in the author's voice, I am also going to buy and read the Kindle version. Some portions of the book seem to be visual and difficult to convey via narration. I think this book needs to include both the audio and the written formats so it may be enjoyed by as many senses as possible!