I have been a fan of Sarah Vowell since hearing her little girl fights squeaky door voice on NPR a decade ago or more. Upon hearing her voice delivering one of her essays, it is virtually impossible not to hear it as you read her. While the voice is unique, it is the flow that really stays with you. As a reader, you know where the pauses fit and why and where to rush ahead a little before catching your breathe again after a well delivered punch line. Essays about her childhood invariably touch on some aspect of American history, while her essays about history reveal that America is a family that we are all a part of for better or ill. She has a great way to sum up the often conflicting emotions we have about families and history in her essay about the forced Indian migration known as The Trail of Tears: "When I think about my relationship with America, I feel like a battered wife. Yeah, he knocks me around a lot, but boy, he sure can dance." This book TAKE THE CANNOLI is a collection of her earlier works. Some I had heard on the radio but I did not mind visiting them again. Though the work is often topical, it does not suffer with the passing of time or the passing away of cultural reference points. This is a testament to the precision of her prose. She stays with the humorous marrow even when the flesh has been gleaned from the historical bones. Highly recommend anything she has written though this is probably more accessible than some of her more history centric works like THE PARTLY CLOUDY PATRIOT and THE WORDY SHIPMATES--both of which I love.