Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Not Exactly a Guide, But Maybe An Outline

How to Be an Anticapitalist in the 21st Century by Erik Olin Wright

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Best for: Anyone looking for an easy-to-digest outline of the options we have for moving society away from capitalism. In a nutshell: In six short but packed chapters, author Wright explores the problems of capitalism, the various ways of fighting it, and what is needed to accomplish that. Worth quoting: “The claim that capitalism harms democracy and freedom is more complex than simply proposing that capitalism is opposed to freedom and democracy. Rather, the logic is that capitalism generates severe deficits in realizing the values […]

Disappointing

How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire by Andreas Malm

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Best for: I’m really not sure, and I’ll get to that in the review. In a nutshell: Author (and climate activist) Malm attempts to argue in favor of stronger action by the public where it comes to climate change and fossil fuel. Worth quoting: “We face an ostensible paradox here, in that the US is a vastly more violent society — as measured by the diffusion of guns, the incidence of mass shootings, the civilians killed by police, the veneration of armed heroes in popular […]

Fat is Not a Bad Thing

Happy Fat: Taking Up Space in a World that Wants to Shrink You by Sofie Hagen

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Best for: Anyone who has been exposed to fatphobia (e.g. all of us) and who wants to work on unlearning it, via book with a lot of heart but also a lot of humor. In a nutshell: Comedian Sofie Hagen is a fat woman working to help other fat people to love themselves while also targeting the reasons why fat people might not love themselves: the gross fat bigotry that is evident pretty much everywhere one looks. Worth quoting: There are a lot, but because […]

Fuck The Patriarchy

The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahawy

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Best for: Women. People with women in their lives. Feminists. In a nutshell: Author and activist Eltahawy makes the case for the sins women should embrace as we seek to destroy the patriarch. Worth quoting: “I don’t want to be protected. I want to be free.” “I refuse to be civil with someone who refuses to acknowledge my humanity fully.” “But who indoctrinated those Republican white women? Who taught them to submit to patriarchy? Those are questions often reserved for Muslima women, but I demand […]

R-E-A-D Please!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul by Carole Boston Weatherford

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I had hoped to like R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul by Carole Boston Weatherford a bit more than I did. Perhaps my desire to like it “a lot” made it impossible for the result to live up to my expectations. Yet in the end, I enjoyed reading this glimpse into Franklin’s world. It just will probably not be on my top ten of favorite picture books I read this year list. This book is simple, but not simplistic. We see the life and […]

Love what you do, how you do it, and the body you do it in

Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by Adrienne Maree Brown (Editor)

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Woof. I have been reading a lot of really amazing critical work this year and a lot of it has been just for fun. Also, a lot of it makes me feel like my brain is exploding but in a way that feels really really good to me, and I think Adrienne Maree Brown would approve.   Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, by Adrienne Maree Brown, is a collection of essays, interviews, and other writing by Brown as well as a series of […]



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