Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“I can remember how grown-up I felt then, and earlier, since about nine. Because we age one way, in one direction, every age we are is the most grown-up we’ve ever been.”

Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body by Sara Pascoe

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Sara Pascoe is here for you. There is no stone she won’t turn over and no story she won’t tell, because she is going to use her embarrassments, misunderstandings, failures, and larks to help you learn. If you are looking for a medical textbook on what it means to be a human woman then go ahead and look elsewhere. If you want a smart and unflinching comedian to share her life story with you while looking back through biology, history, and cultural norms in order […]

Her Voice

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

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Carmen Maria Machado’s voice is a fine-honed instrument. She reads In the Dream House, her memoir of receiving abuse in a same-sex relationship, at a volume just above a whisper. She is hushed, quick, and measured yet still barreling down. Her voice is arresting. You will stop dead-still to catch her every intake of breath. She is a force to be reckoned with. I am in awe of her strength; her strength to survive, her strength to document, and her strength to share her darkest […]

The Mozart Effect Effect!

Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman

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Not a typo! You are probably familiar with the Mozart Effect, but have you heard about the Mozart Effect Effect?! We’ve all heard the story: listening to Mozart makes you smarter! You will test better! Your babies will be brilliant! You will smash the SATS! Listening to Mozart every day will give you a leg up above all of the others! My mother was definitely a proponent of this adventure; “if you can play classical music, then how come you can’t do well in math! Mozart […]

An autobiography in verse

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

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4.5 stars Official book description: Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world. […]

YES I CAN HEAR YOU CLEM FANDANGO

Toast on Toast by Steven Toast

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and with that traditional greeting, Steven Toast bellows his way into the utterly ridiculous and frequently disgusting story of his life. Steven Toast, an utter buffoon of a down on his luck/past his prime actor, is the creation of Matt Berry and Arthur Matthews- and while Toast is credited as the author (what with this being an autobiography and all), the work really belongs to them. If you have not seen Toast’s show, Toast of London, then you are going to need to stop what […]

this woman’s work

If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home by Lucy Worsley

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Bill Bryson’s delightful At Home: A Short History of Private Life came first, but Lucy Worsley’s If Walls Could Talk separates itself from the predecessor by being, well, more intimate! I promise this will be a review of If the Walls Could Talk, but if you are ever in need of a peaceful “sleep read” then I highly recommend plugging into the audio adaptation of Bryson’s book- it is seriously soothing. The biggest difference between At Home and If Walls Could Talk is the female perspective. Bryson’s book was framed around […]



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