Rating: 
Summary: Connect the Dots
Review: I did enjoy this collection of essays, don't get me wrong. But I have to say that I would have enjoyed each of them more if I had stumbled across them online or in a magazine. Each essay was refreshingly acute, giving meaning to the otherwise slightly mundane and irreverent, while at the same time highlighting parts of American popular culture and history that perhaps we haven't given due notice to.I feel that the collection would have had a greater overall-presence to it if it had either been a collection of humor/personal essays or a collection of popular culture essays. Now I know what you die-hard This American Life listeners out there are thinking, that the beauty of writers like Sarah Vowell and David Sedaris is that they are able to combine both humor and personal memoir with social commentary and analysis into one essay. Well, I agree with you. I just don't think Vowell captured this in each individual essay, therefore my overall reaction at the end was, "Huh? Its over? Where's the last essay that's supposed to sum up everything?" Maybe I'm just a stickler for conclusions that I, myself, don't have to make.
Rating: 
Summary: Sarah Rules
Review: I bought the book because I love listening to Sarah Vowell's work on NPR (This American Life), and I wasn't disappointed. The wonderful thing about reading essays by someone you've listened to so much on the radio is that you can hear her telling you the story. Knowing her distinctly wry voice made it all the more vivid. My one complaint is that i had already heard several of the stories on the program (like the title essay), or read them at Salon. But I still loved reading them again. If you want to hear Sarah, try visiting the Thislife.org web site.
Rating:
Summary: I LOVED THIS BOOK...
Review: ...but I will caution readers that they MIGHT find it more enjoyable to hear Consigliere Sarah Vowell read them herself. That's what I discovered. Don't get me wrong, this is a fantastic book start to finish; my favorite This American Life essayist covers a wide and diverse variety of topics, from the Trail of Tears to growing up a gunsmith's daughter to going Goth for a day. Every essay in this book was a delectable morsel of Sarah Vowell's acid, accurate wit. This wonderful piece of insight made me laugh, made me think, and most of all, made me understand why I should leave the gun and take the cannoli. Thank you, Sarah Vowell, for continuing to grace the world of popular culture with your fresh, cutting perspective.
Rating:
Summary: Humorous essays from NPR's "This American Life" commentator
Review: The best pieces are hilariously funny and touching, while others are strident and obsessive. My favorites are about insomnia, a goth makeover, rock 'n' roll fantasy camp, learning to drive, making custom music tapes, and the high school band experience.
Rating:
Summary: Fun read
Review: Sarah Vowell captures unique colors. Her stories are easily readable, funny, engaging, and at times, very moving. Her style is informal, and her train of thought is carefree and rambling, more like a conversation with a friend than an overly-wrought work of high literature. Many people are nutty in the same way as she is nutty, and we'd strangle them if they weren't so entertaining. Few such people ever get around to actually publishing. It's fun stuff. Read it, and be entertained.
Rating:
Summary: C'mon, Read this book. Its good, I sware.
Review: I read this book in about one week. Very witty, short glimpses into Ms. Vowell's life. Topics covered include Goth Make-overs, the Trail of Tears, Parents and Insomnia. I definately recomend this book. Its like reading a fanzine (or a diary)
Rating:
Summary: Funny and wise
Review: I was not familiar with Sarah Vowell until I saw her with Dave Eggers in a panel discussion at UCLA. Then I realized that I had read several of her pieces before, most memorably, her piece about putting together a mix tape for a friend, which I found out was Dave Eggers. I soon discovered that she also worked for "This American Life" but I can't recall ever hearing her on there. In any case, this collection is at once funny and wise. Vowell can elicit laughs with her life experiences but she also draws wonderful truths from them. "Shooting Dad", for example, details Vowell's father's gun hobby and Vowell's reaction to it. The piece ends with a sobering realization about herself and the curse of genetics. Other marvelously funny pieces are the DisneyWorld-set "Species-on-Species Abuse" and Vowell's humanitarian attempt to prevent the playing of "My Way" on the event of Frank Sinatra's death. Vowell is not as overtly funny as David Sedaris, a friend of Vowell's and a fellow "This American Life" conributor, but her pieces are still charming, smart and surprisingly wise.
Rating:
Summary: Hooray for Sarah the Smartaleck
Review: In one of the pieces in this very funny book, Sarah compares herself to Mr. Spock: a severely objective being stranded on an absurdly emotional planet. This is the source of her comedy. She just can't believe her eyes when confronted by a "rock and roll dream camp" populated entirely by has-beens. She just knows that every television news program in existence will play "My Way" after Sinatra dies. Vowell sees through everything and still retains her love for America, even at its silliest.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Even on a slow day
Review: This was my introduction to Ms Vowell. I should have kept looking. If this person has a following, it must be because of her radio work.Her stories are disjointed, and the subject matter for the most part very thin. I did, however enjoy her chapter on the Trail of Tears--very informative and sensitive.
Rating:
Summary: better on the radio, but worth reading for the gems
Review: Some of the essays are lightweight -- e.g. about the meaning of making an audio tape compilation for someone. Some are deeper, about things like father-daughter relationships. The sudden change from one flavor of essay to another can be jarring, but the essays don't suffer for that, just the book as a whole. Some are combinations, like "Music Lessons", about "lessons accidentally learned while pursuing music." The pieces are probably best suited to radio, one at a time during a commute. In book form, they don't achieve full potential. You're not forced to read them in quick succession, but the book format pulls you to do so, and the points that make you laugh and nod are forgotten too quickly. A few of these essays (New Jersey, Chicago and Frank Sinatra) feel like too many words saying too little. But there are some gems of observation.
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