Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Bodies Are Political, and So Is What We Put on Them

Dressed for Freedom: The Fashionable Politics of American Feminism by Einav Rabinovitch-Fox

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Fashion may seem to be concerned entirely with pop culture, but the way people choose to dress can make a statement about their politics, and feminists over the 20th century have made ample use of this fact. You’d think it should be obvious, with how “the personal is political,” but it was definitely eye-opening to see how deeply fashion and feminism have been entwined, used by both those for and against it to make their point. Despite the cliches about the ‘ugly, man-hating feminist,’ many […]

Jazz Baby

Where All Good Flappers Go: Essential Stories of the Jazz Age by David M. Earle (Editor)

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The flapper girl is an icon of the Roaring Twenties, appearing in plenty of novels and films of the era. In this anthology, Pushkin Press brings together some contemporary short stories about the flapper which were published in magazines and papers of the time that celebrated these young women as a mirror of the times. I haven’t read much literature from the 1920s beyond the obligatory The Great Gatsby, but I’ve always found it intriguing how quickly social mores seemed to swing round during this […]

Metamorphoses for a New Millennium

Fit For the Gods by Jenn Northington (Editor), S. Zainab Williams (Editor)

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Though Greek mythology originates from several millennia ago, their stories have been renewed again and again over the centuries through art and literature. In this anthology, more than a dozen authors tackle this too – but their tellings are with a twist, bringing racially, sexually, and culturally diverse takes to the classic stories. I’ve always loved Greek mythology and have engaged with in a plethora of ways, from reading classic translations to the Percy Jackson books to the recent trend in novel-length unpackings like Madeline […]

I love discovering new romance authors

Love at First Flight by Janine Amesta

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Nowhere Books Bingo 2025: Book Dedicated to a Parent Thank you to Janine Amesta for granting me this ARC. It has not influenced my review, my opinions are my own. Thank you also, Emmalita, who tipped me off about this author. Selah Moreno’s beloved stepfather always wanted to be an airline pilot, but couldn’t become one for a number of reasons. So he flew hot air balloons instead. Selah trains to become a pilot instead, but when her father unexpectedly dies, and her mother and […]

“It may be said of some very old places, as of some very old books, that they are destined to be forever new. The nearer we approach them, the more remote they seem: the more we study them, the more we have yet to learn. “

Women in the Valley of the Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age by Kathleen Sheppard

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In the so-called Golden Age of Egyptology, it was men who were known world-wide as the archeologists and academics who wrestled the secrets of Ancient Egypt from the desert, carrying away much of what they found. In this book, Sheppard turns the spotlight on female Egyptologists, who had less recognition but were equally instrumental in the early days of the discipline. I’m not very familiar with Egyptology in the Gilded Age beyond Howard Carter’s famous “Yes, wonderful things!” and a vague understanding of how the […]

A Lonely Grave in a Far Land

The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook by Hampton Sides

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Captain James Cook was already a world-renowned explorer when he set out on his third great voyage around the world. Over the course of three years, he’d touch down on the shores of Tasmania, be the first European to come in contact with the people of the Hawaiian islands, and nearly destroy his ships and sailors in the search for the fabled Northwest Passage – and meet a grisly end in a strange murder that is still being debated to this very day. I read […]



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