Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Decor Galore: The Essential Guide to Styling Your Home by Laura De Barra

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Best for: Those just about to move into a new home (ideally one they own); those who are looking to make some changes to their existing home. In a nutshell: Author De Barra offers ideas on how to improve spaces throughout one’s home, whether by making just a few changes or completely overhauling the room. Worth quoting: She refers to DIY as She-IY and that’s just not for me. Why I chose it: We’ve been in our flat for nearly a year now, and some […]

“In headlines and news copy, we call them “the mentally ill.” In truth, they are our mothers and fathers, our brothers and sisters. They are us.”

While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence by Meg Kissinger

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This book was the selection for my local library book club and they came out swinging with a real heartbreaker for the first selection for our new year. It’s the first non-fiction that I can remember us readingnand rife for discussion. It is so raw and sad but well written that you’ll read past the point where your heart can take it. I was gripped by her storytelling but eventually had to take a break (see also my review of Kevin Kwan’s Lies and Weddings which […]

“Introduction: In the Long Run, We’re All Dead.”

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

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I first came acorss Oliver Burkeman’s ideas on the podcast NPR Life Kit, episode titled “How To Rethink What You Spend Your Time — And Life — Doing.” He had my immediate attention. And then I forgot about it because you know, life. A different friend said this book was life-changing and I was skeptical because that’s a bold claim but now that I’ve read it I concur. I have almost every other page of this book turned down, and so many lines highlighted it’s […]

“Don’t stop beginning. Begin and begin and begin. Begin endlessly—that is, without the taint of even eventual ending.”

All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess by Becca Rothfeld

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Literary critic Becca Rothfeld argues against the modern inclination toward minimalism, and insteads advocates embracing all the messy and irrepressible things that make the human existence so rewarding. I am this book’s target audience, because like Rothfeld I wonder if in the process of streamlining our world we have reached an unpleasantly bland and bloodless zeitgeist. I enjoy colorful and unusual clothes and furniture. I find the aesthetic of minimalism boring. I love the over the top pulp literature of yesteryears. I don’t want the […]

Camelot Was Always a Lie

Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed by Maureen Callahan

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CBR16 Bingo: Golden – Callahan attacks the golden myth of Camelot and the Kennedy family, revealing the dark and dangerous truth underneath. Lurking in the darker corners of the Kennedy family legacy are the many women whose lives turned out worse for the association. In this book, Maureen Callahan tries to bring them to light. I’m familiar with many of the people and stories in this book, but Callahan does an excellent job of placing them in context of each other, weaving across generations and decades to […]

“What would happen if we spoke the truth?”

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

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Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic had been on my to read for a bit as one of the more visible challenged and banned books since its publication in 2006  (31st most challenged  in the decade 2010-2019 according to the ALA) that I hadn’t gotten to yet, but moved higher up as it was challenged locally to me twice since 2020 (it’s been retained both times). So, it found its way to my September reading as my personal choice for Banned Books Week 2024.   As […]



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