Take the Cannoli : Stories From the New World

by Sarah Vowell

book data

2,981 ratings, 3.89 average rating, 296 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		24%
4		45%
3		25%
2		4%
1		0%

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published

April 3rd 2001 (first published 2000) by Simon & Schuster

binding

Paperback, 224 pages

isbn

0743205405 (isbn13: 9780743205405)

description

Take the Cannoli is a moving and wickedly funny collection of personal stories stretching across the immense landscape of the American scene. Vowell t...more

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01/19/09

Bookczuk rated it:

(review of isbn 0141006579)

bookshelves: bookcrossing, great-title

Read in November, 2005

I realized reading this that I am familiar with this author from NPR's This American Life

Some of the essays captured my imagination, some did not. All in all it was a diverting read from the all that is occupying my time around her otherwise.

FROM THE PUBLISHER
Take the Cannoli is a moving and wickedly funny collection of personal stories stretching across the immense landscape of the American scene. Vowell tackles subjects such as identity, politics, religion, art...more

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12/22/08

Ciara rated it:

Read in December, 2008

recommends it for: history buffs, NPR listeners, folks in need of massachusetts dinner party repartee

i wanted to like this book better than i liked it. at the end of the day, i like sarah vowell's writing: it's funny & engaging, it's smart & self-deprecating & informative. but there's so much strangely blind patriotism in here. yeah, it comes from a liberal perspective, what with vowell being all over NPR & being really critical of the bush administration & everything, but there's so much of, "if we could just fix these huge glaring problems with the government, this country would be aweso...more i wanted to like this book better than i liked it. at the end of the day, i like sarah vowell's writing: it's funny & engaging, it's smart & self-deprecating & informative. but there's so much strangely blind patriotism in here. yeah, it comes from a liberal perspective, what with vowell being all over NPR & being really critical of the bush administration & everything, but there's so much of, "if we could just fix these huge glaring problems with the government, this country would be awesome!" & i think that's really naive & short-sighted. probably the piece in here that bothered me the most was the one about andrew jackson & the trail of tears. vowell is all, "i am part native american, so i wanted to travel the trail of tears like my ancestors did." i mean, right off the bat, the whole concept was grating on me in a way i just can't quote explain. she gets into the whole history of the cherokee nation being pretty inspired by the new u.s. government & copying a lot of their ideas & starting a newspaper & a written language & all this shit that other indian tribes hadn't really thought about doing before, & how the cherokee people were supposed to be considered a sovereign nation within the boundaries of the u.s., but a lot of white settlers wanted them to move off their land so the white people could claim it for farms & such forth, & a few tribe members who felt their eviction was inevitable anyway went ahead & signed a treaty with jackson & agreed that everyone would clear out. when the tribe failed to meet the deadline set down in the treaty (because the overwhelming majority of the tribe was totally opposed to the treaty), they were forced into stockades & set out on the six-month march along the trail of tears, which vowell drove with her sister, stopping at indian- & jackson-themed landmarks along the way. the whole thing...it seemed a little bit histrionic. not that the trail of tears wasn't a barbaric thing, but i couldn't help but feel that some of vowell's rage was a little bit appropriative. it just struck a sour note with me, as does much of her "rah rah america" crap. i'm into the whole concept of exploring the seedy underbelly of american history, peeling up the carpet & seeing where the roaches run, etc, but there was something just a touch insincere about this book. i'm still working it out in my head.(less)

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01/12/09

Lauren rated it:

(review of isbn 0141006579)

Read in January, 2009

I have heard wonderful things about Sarah Vowell, and I thought she would be great because she was funny on Gigantic, that documentary about They Might Be Giants. I’ve never heard her on This American Life, but Ira Glass and This American Life are great, so I bet she is, too. But I didn’t like her book. I must admit, toward the end I left huge chunks unread. I’d, like, get to a boring chapter and think “aw, hell no. Next!” and I’d start reading the next one and pretty much be equally...more I have heard wonderful things about Sarah Vowell, and I thought she would be great because she was funny on Gigantic, that documentary about They Might Be Giants. I’ve never heard her on This American Life, but Ira Glass and This American Life are great, so I bet she is, too. But I didn’t like her book. I must admit, toward the end I left huge chunks unread. I’d, like, get to a boring chapter and think “aw, hell no. Next!” and I’d start reading the next one and pretty much be equally disappointed.

I was excited for about ten seconds when I saw the chapter that started “I am standing on Disney World’s Main Street, U.S.A…” but ended up just getting pissed. Of course, she must explain how it’s a TOTAL ACCIDENT that she ended up there (because she is actually above Disney World), makes fun of pretty much everything (like, the fact that the waiters dressed in Revolutionary War-Era clothes have to wear black sneakers? Who gives a shit?) Honestly, I have witnessed it all. There is plenty to make fun of in Disney World, but Vowell instead seemed appalled by the least controversial things. She also claims that on Tom Sawyer’s Island someone scrawled “Fuck Off Nazis” on one of the walls and I feel like flying there right now to prove her wrong. They unleash an army of janitors the moment the park closes every night to unstick discarded gum, and scrub and pick up trash from every square inch of the park. There is absolutely no way there is graffiti of any kind. I have never seen it. She ends by taking a trip to Celebration, Florida and making fun of that. Too easy. Who goes to Celebration for fun, anyway? (Despite its name, it is not a party town and everyone who is there knows it’s not trying to be entertaining. It’s basically a retirement community.)

All I could think of is “thank God I don’t have to go to Disney world with you, or anywhere for that matter.” In fact, Vowell came off as pretty pretentious and un-fun throughout the entire book. She is predictably nerdy – it is almost painful how stereotypical it all is. I read a lot of reviews that praised the book after I gave up reading it, so I picked it up and said “okay, Lauren, let’s try again!” But honestly, it was too excruciating and I thought why am I doing this and I started reading a new book, that I am really actually enjoying.

Maybe I should have tried harder, and maybe, as a Disney nerd, I was farrrrrrr too offended about the unjustifiable Disney stabs. That might have ruined the entire book for me. So please, someone who has read it that is NOT a Disney nerd: is she right, is this book okay? Did the Disney stuff (and all the other stuff) entertain you?
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02/18/09

Visha rated it:

(review of isbn 0141006579)

Read in February, 2009

Sarah Vowell’s second collection was a must buy for me since I’ve been on a Vowell kick and apparently no one else has her early stuff. You can see her style emerging strongly in this collection, particularly in the stronger essays such as “Species on Species Abuse” (about Disneyland) and “What I See When I Look at the Face on the $20 Bill” (about the Trail of Tears). While the collection as a whole is not as strong as her follow up, 2002’s The Partly Cloudy Patriot, I still found...more

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05/29/09

Anne rated it:

(review of isbn 0141006579)

Read in June, 2009

Sarah Vowell is a regular contributor to NPR's "This American Life." Her collection of personal essays, in the tradition of David Sedaris and Dave Eggers, has received monumental praise. Her voice is hailed as "moving" and "wickedly funny." But, like so much in this genre, I think it takes just the right sense of humor to really click with a given writer. I just could not make the connection. I did like Vowell's writing - it was not pretentious or overly flowery - b...more

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06/11/09

Jason rated it:

(review of isbn 0141006579)

bookshelves: read-2009

Read in June, 2009

Having come off of the high of reading Assassination Vacation, I jumped headfirst into Take the Cannoli, a series of essays by Vowell that jumped from imploring television stations to not play "My Way" when Frank Sinatra would die (a plea that was prophetically ignored), to an essay exploring her separation from her father, a gun making republican to her New York loving Democrat, and the mending of that divide. Ranging from mildly annoying, in the way that performance artists are annoy...more

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03/19/09

Jonathan rated it:

(review of isbn 0141006579)

Reading Sarah Vowell for the first time was like finding a long lost friend that I never met before. There was an immediate familiarity - the sense of deja'vu: as though we shared these conversations at the cafe about the awkward teenage years, sibling rivalry, quirky family relationships and more.

I immediately recognized something of myself in her writing, as well as something inspirational. I can't gush too much: there's a few pieces in here that are dry. However, I think you have...more

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06/23/08

Trina rated it:

(review of isbn 0141006579)

Sarah Vowell is very funny, but she's also a great critic of popular culture, and specifically popular political history. She's always IN these essays, too, though -- I admire her courage to make it clear that she really cares about these issues.

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11/25/08

Pam rated it:

(review of isbn 0141006579)

Read in January, 2009

Hmm. After reading "Assassination Vacation" I was aglow and thought perhaps Vowell was my new non-fiction BFF. So with all her remaining books sitting on my to-be-read shelf, I pulled down this prior book and ya know, I think I might need to break up with Sarah for awhile. She's still exemplary compared to most non-fiction writers, and of course, with links to NPR and The Daily Show, and Ira Glass as her boss (at the time of driving essay publication) she’s superior to pretty much ev...more

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11/21/08

Megan rated it:

(review of isbn 0141006579)

Read in November, 2008

I just discovered this author/journalist and I really like her. She's super funny and this book of essays was a nice, quick read. My favorite part in this book is when she is talking about how she always believed in the evil horses of the Apocalypse because when she was little her father gave her a horse named Stockings, but no saddle and the horse terrorized her. Sarah says that 'if one of the four horses of the Apocalypse had to be out down, Stockings was ready to ride.' Ha!

I’m r...more

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06/17/08

Merrie rated it:

(review of isbn 0684867974)

Read in August, 2008

Once when I was extolling the virtues of Chicago Public Radio's "This American Life" for someone who complained he had to drive through boring country a lot. He said, "Can't. Can't do it. I've tried." I was surprised, I'd never found someone who'd hated the show. "I cannot stand Sara Vowell's voice," he said. He used some hyperbole about it, like it was a knife in his brain.

I've loved Sara Vowell's wit on "This American Life," although I ...more Once when I was extolling the virtues of Chicago Public Radio's "This American Life" for someone who complained he had to drive through boring country a lot. He said, "Can't. Can't do it. I've tried." I was surprised, I'd never found someone who'd hated the show. "I cannot stand Sara Vowell's voice," he said. He used some hyperbole about it, like it was a knife in his brain.

I've loved Sara Vowell's wit on "This American Life," although I have to admit, sometimes, yeah...that voice. It's not a knife in my person, but it keeps me at somewhat of a distance.

I saw her on the last live TAL tour, and her piece intrigued me - on sitcom's depictions of the first Thanksgiving vs. reality vs. a short-lived but apparently brilliant sitcom called "Thanks." There are some repeats from the TAL program here, (maybe more than I realize). One of my favorites TAL essays, "Thanks for the Memorex," was something I included for a old friend on...yes...his mixtape. A bad move, I knew even at the time. You don't put an audio essay of any significant length in the middle of a bunch of songs, no matter how meta-theatrical. A sentence, maybe. A sound byte, sure. But it's jarring to be listening to music and then *BAM* here's words. A bunch of them.

But, oh, how nostalgic I became for the hours spent on my crappy boombox with the dual cassette deck, doing math on a piece of paper filled with the song lengths to that the last second of side A feeds right into the leader. And how difficult is it to love someone with the opposite taste in music? I was once in a club in high school called - I'm serious, PAAM. People for the Appreciation of Alternative Music. I don't believe I ever attended more than 2 meetings. I don't believe we ever had more than 2 meetings. But music is important to me (even though I have a sucky cd/record/mp3 collection). It's something Sara and I definitely have in common. Along with driving issues.

But reading pieces about her background, Frank Sinatra, the Chelsea Hotel and particularly one about the history of the U.S. from the corner of Wacker and Michigan, a place I walk by almost every day, warmed me to her. It was like being at a dinner party with your friend's fascinating college chum, in town for the weekend, beguiling you with information while everyone else discusses something inherently boring, like The Hills, or themselves.

I love learning things, and she informs you without being dry in the least. I'm sure if I'd gone to high school, I would have been friends with Sara. If I didn't despise her. I have the sneaking suspicion we'd be so similar in nature, we'd probably hate each other. How sad is that?

Anywhoo.

Yes, pick it up, it's a nice quick read for a train ride. Even if she normally bugs you on the radiah, her literary voice soothes. (less)

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02/05/08

Nickie rated it:

Read in December, 2005

Started and finished Sarah Vowell’s Take the Cannoli and loved it. She makes me laugh, her neurotic tendencies, her love of history and Abe Lincoln, her canny questions and being okay with not having all the answers. At all. I like the following passage about a recent breakup with a guy whom they mostly communicated through mixtapes as I was finishing up burning last weeks radio show to send off next week:

“What I did get out of the entire sad situation, besides big phone bills, a b...more

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07/30/07

Dolores rated it:

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in May, 2003

Sarah Vowell is witty, acerbic and opinionated, yet she has an abiding respect and deep interest in the history of the United States, both good and bad. She knows her subject matter extremely well, and interjects her adventures with some of the most biting wit and a view of the world far beyond her years.
Sarah Vowell is a former Pentecostal-turned-Atheist, one half of a pair of mis-matched twin sisters, born in Oklahoma, raised in Montana, and, at the time she wrote this book, a resident o...more Sarah Vowell is witty, acerbic and opinionated, yet she has an abiding respect and deep interest in the history of the United States, both good and bad. She knows her subject matter extremely well, and interjects her adventures with some of the most biting wit and a view of the world far beyond her years.
Sarah Vowell is a former Pentecostal-turned-Atheist, one half of a pair of mis-matched twin sisters, born in Oklahoma, raised in Montana, and, at the time she wrote this book, a resident of Chicago. She is a registered Democrat and avowed gun-hater, who clashes amusingly with her Republican, gun-loving father, and who is appalled at her twin sister's fascination with guns. This does not prevent her, however, from helping her father fire off a cannon into the great open spaces, but she doesn't come back for more.

This collection of essays covers a great deal of territory, including Vowell's childhood, her religious upbringing, her obessession with the film 'The Godfather' (hence the title, a line from that film), a trip to Disney World to see the Hall of Presidents (where someone in the audience actually whoops and hollers for the audioanimatronic Abraham Lincoln), a trip to Hoboken, New Jersey to re-trace the steps of the town's favorite son, Frank Sinatra, and a re-tracing of the Cherokee Trail of Tears with her sister behind the wheel (because, she has not learned to drive and defends herself by saying Barbara.Walters.Does.Not.Drive), which becomes a soul-searching adventure. She stays at the famed Chelsea Hotel in New York and she goes underground as a Goth in San Francisco. She is just as funny writing about her adventures as she is re-telling the less-monumental personal events of her life. Just when I thought I'd read her funniest paragraph, I would find myself laughing uproariously in another chapter. Her analogies, her witticisms and her sly remarks are hilarious.

Sarah Vowell is sarcastic without seeming bitter, and she is honest without being brutal. She is simply a great writer and essayist, and a very droll wit and a slightly cynical, yet somewhat hopeful, view of life in these United States.

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06/04/07

Trin rated it:

(review of isbn 0684867974)

bookshelves: american-lit, essays, politics, popculture

Read in January, 2007

Reading Sarah Vowell always inspires in me the same reaction as watching/listening to a really cool kid did in high school (or, okay, now): I desperately want to hang with her. (Especially because she's also friends with fellow essayist David Rakoff, whom I adore; one of the pieces in this collection is about the two of them going to DisneyWorld, and I had resist the temptation to leap up from my couch, waving my hand and crying: 'Ooh, take me! Take me, too!') In these essays about growing up/...more

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03/26/09

Coco rated it:

(review of isbn 0141006579)

Read in May, 2006

I just enjoy everything Sarah Vowell does, from her books to her interviews on Colbert and the Daily Show, to This American Life. So it's no surprise I enjoyed this book. Her essays are smart, acerbic and just plain funny. I enjoy her insights and also love reading more about her Republican dad and not-so-identical twin sister. She's a proud patriot and that means being willing to say what's wrong with our country, as well as what's right. I'll read anything she has to write.

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11/10/08

Joanne rated it:

bookshelves: non-fiction

Read in November, 2008

I saw Vowell interviewed on the Daily Show and thought she sounded interesting, so picked up the book. Apparently she also writes and appears on This American Life, but with little people in the house I no longer catch that very often.

Anyway, she's an entertaining storyteller. Others who grew up fundamentalist might resonate with some of her third chapter (The End is Near, Nearer, Nearest). I think the first three chapters, on her growing up, are the funniest and most touching; I'...more

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06/24/09

Mike rated it:

(review of isbn 0141006579)

Read in June, 2009

recommends it for: jerks that listen to NPR

Mildly interesting collection of essays examining pop culture and American history. The author has a certain wit, and her essays are quite clever even if ultimately not particularly insightful. Happy well-adjusted people, even the quirky clever and observant ones, annoy me on some level. Sarah Vowell is like FDR before the polio bestowed to him a visceral understanding of the terror of life. I hope she finds a less painful avenue to that sort of wisdom.

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01/26/09

Debbie rated it:

Read in January, 2009

recommends it for: fans of This American Life

Sarah Vowell writes about her family, friends, jobs, quirks--just about everything--with humor, intelligence and heart. From retracing the Trail of Tears to learning to drive from Ira Glass, each essay shows us not only how Sarah copes (or doesn't) with the world around her, but how we all do.

I read this book as a break from The Inferno and The Worst Hard Time. It gave me the energy and the good humor to go on and finish them both.

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12/26/08

Erin rated it:

(review of isbn 0141006579)

Read in December, 2008

I was super excited when a student accidentally returned their own copy of this book to our library, so I could read it while it was languishing in the lost and found waiting to be claimed by its rightful owner. I love it how books can sometimes find me, without any effort on my part.

In any case, this is the first Sarah Vowell book I've read, and I think I need to get acclimated to her voice before I can fully appreciate her. In other words, I think she'll grow on me the more I read ...more

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02/28/09

Nancy rated it:

(review of isbn 0141006579)

Read in February, 2009

I was familiar with Sarah Vowell from This American Life. Her strange little voice is made for humor, so having that in my head made the stories even more entertaining. The book is a mix of personal narratives and essays on American culture, and I generally preferred the former. Rarely laugh-out-loud funny, she has a dry, intelligent humor that comes across in all of these selections.

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