Had you been an English colonist, would you be more of a Plymouth Puritan or a Massachusetts Puritan? Writer Sarah Vowell can tell you the difference between the two, which she explores in her jaunty history book The Wordy Shipmates. The meaning behind the title? The Puritians' “single-minded obsession with one book, the Bible, made words the center of their lives.” Vowell, known for her regular endearing commentaries on NPR's This American Life, reads and signs and probably gets some ideas for a book on L.A. on this visit.

Mon., Oct. 19, 7 p.m., 2009

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