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Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World…
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Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World (original 2000; edition 2001)

by Sarah Vowell (Author)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
2,285276,777 (3.86)54
A wickedly funny collection of personal essays from popular NPR personality Sarah Vowell. Hailed by Newsweek as a "cranky stylist with talent to burn," Vowell has an irresistible voice -- caustic and sympathetic, insightful and double-edged -- that has attracted a loyal following for her magazine writing and radio monologues on This American Life. While tackling subjects such as identity, politics, religion, art, and history, these autobiographical tales are written with a biting humor, placing Vowell solidly in the tradition of Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker. Vowell searches the streets of Hoboken for traces of the town's favorite son, Frank Sinatra. She goes under cover of heavy makeup in an investigation of goth culture, blasts cannonballs into a hillside on a father-daughter outing, and maps her family's haunted history on a road trip down the Trail of Tears. Take the Cannoli is an eclectic tour of the New World, a collection of alternately hilarious and heartbreaking essays and autobiographical yarns.… (more)
Member:melydia
Title:Take the Cannoli: Stories From the New World
Authors:Sarah Vowell (Author)
Info:Simon & Schuster (2001), Edition: Illustrated, 219 pages
Collections:Read and Released
Rating:****
Tags:nonfiction, essays

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Take the Cannoli by Sarah Vowell (2000)

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» See also 54 mentions

English (26)  Spanish (1)  All languages (27)
Showing 1-5 of 26 (next | show all)
A collection of autobiographical essays about eulogizing Frank Sinatra, following the Trail of Tears, The Godfather, insomnia, the art of making mix tapes, and loads more besides. It's very much about life as an American but with neither the fawning grandiosity nor the abject scorn so common in other essays of this type. I'm a tad jealous of her opportunities to travel to interesting places, but I am (mostly) content to visit them vicariously. There were a few times when I wondered how an essay would have gone had it been written today (specifically post-9/11, but in other ways too). I enjoy Vowell's style of writing and will have to pick up her other books at some point. ( )
  melydia | Jan 9, 2023 |

Sarah Vowell would have been my favorite American history teacher. She connects the dots in history making history meaningful.

Her researched her own family history for the Trail of Tears. I remember a paragraph in middle school and a maybe a question on a follow up quiz about it .... She really gives a lot more love (in the research) to a heinous chapter in America's history.

Especially because he was before my time, I loved her musings on Sinatra.

This book is a collection of her works. Some with history (see above) ... Some more just of her personal life (insomnia and her family). I found the personal stuff passable reading and the American history phenomenal reading.

I do enjoy her work and will continue looking for her books .... veering to her writings on history. ( )
  wellington299 | Feb 19, 2022 |
A collection of Vowell's essays culled from several magazine/newspaper columns and This American Life, this is one of those books that is difficult for me to rate.

On the one hand, I found her dry humour entertaining, but on the other, I'm not a fan of cynicism in general, and Vowell's weaponised form often taxed my patience.

She and I are the same age, but our childhoods did not share much in the way of common experiences, and we definitely don't share a common political view. I was, in fact, incredulous that she referred to perjury on the part of a president as a "fib". But we do share a deep, abiding love for our country even when it disappoints and horrifies us.

The essays I connected with, or enjoyed most were the ones where she was able to put her disaffected persona to the side (or at least mute it) and talk about those experiences common to most everybody: battles with insomnia, her experiences at the rock and roll camp, learning to drive. There's an essay about Chicago that is brilliant and even though I think she let herself get in her own way, her piece on the Trail of Tears was devastating and moving.

So even though I can't say I loved this work, it's only because I was unable to find enough common ground to do so. But I do think Vowell is an excellent writer and I'd happily read more of her work; she has a book on famous assassinations I've had my eye on for some time now that I'm definitely going to hunt down.

I read this book for my final Free Friday read; it was 209 pages. ( )
  murderbydeath | Jan 29, 2022 |
Solid essay collection with the candor & snark I love from Vowell. Seems I just prefer her longer form books on singular themes/topics over the grab-bag. ( )
  SESchend | Nov 2, 2021 |
This collection of stories is a memoir of not only the author but of America. Vowell's writing is insightful, funny, and elegant. The only drawback for me was that I couldn't really find a through-line to the stories. No clear theme to tie them all together. As a representative of the conflicting natures of people and America, it certainly succeeds but it also made for a bit of a disjointed read. ( )
  Sarah220 | Jan 23, 2021 |
Showing 1-5 of 26 (next | show all)
From her gun-making father to her obsession with The Godfather, Disney World, The Chelsea Hotel, and Goths, Take The Cannoli is full of personal anecdotes that rarely try to insert themselves into the pop-culture continuum. Instead, they're part of the pop-culture continuum, like mental snapshots taken on a tour of the country. Vowell understands that even the world's most mundane elements can be and often are interesting, making Take The Cannoli a surprisingly successful assessment of American life free from the trappings of grandiosity.
added by SnootyBaronet | editThe A. V. Club, Joshua Klein (Mar 29, 2002)
 
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I love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And Mother. And God. --Johnny Cash
All I wanted was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change. I warn't particular. --Huck Finn on Hell
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For Greil Marcus and David Rakoff
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If you were passing by the house where I grew up during my teenage years and it happened to be before Election Day, you wouldn't have needed to come inside to see that it was a house divided.
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Looking back, I wonder why a gangster movie kidnapped my life. The Godfather had nothing to do with me. I was a feminist, not Italian, and I went to school at Montana State. I had never set foot in New York, thought ravioli came only in a can, and wasn’t blind to the fact that all the women in the film were either virgins, mothers, whores, or Diane Keaton.
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A wickedly funny collection of personal essays from popular NPR personality Sarah Vowell. Hailed by Newsweek as a "cranky stylist with talent to burn," Vowell has an irresistible voice -- caustic and sympathetic, insightful and double-edged -- that has attracted a loyal following for her magazine writing and radio monologues on This American Life. While tackling subjects such as identity, politics, religion, art, and history, these autobiographical tales are written with a biting humor, placing Vowell solidly in the tradition of Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker. Vowell searches the streets of Hoboken for traces of the town's favorite son, Frank Sinatra. She goes under cover of heavy makeup in an investigation of goth culture, blasts cannonballs into a hillside on a father-daughter outing, and maps her family's haunted history on a road trip down the Trail of Tears. Take the Cannoli is an eclectic tour of the New World, a collection of alternately hilarious and heartbreaking essays and autobiographical yarns.

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