Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Et tu, Aristophanes?

Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard

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My very Catholic and moderately conservative auntie gave me this book for Christmas, since I’m the loud feminist in the family, and I actually think it’s really sweet of her that she thought of me when she saw that. I do feel like I’m cheating a bit for including this here though, it’s a very very short book, it’s the printed version of two speeches Mary Beard gave (I’ve heard of her through cultural osmosis but have never really come across any of her writings?) on […]

Powerful Essays

The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House by Audre Lorde

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Best for: People interested in some seriously good essays from a poet and activist. In a nutshell: This mini book contains five of Lorde’s essays / speeches on revolution and liberation. Worth quoting: “To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society.” “Only within a patriarchal structure is maternity the only social power open to women.” “Can anyone here still afford to believe that the pursuit of liberation can be the sole and particular province of any one particular race, or […]

Anything But

Mediocre by Ijeoma Oluo

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What are we doing—we’re constantly holding up the mediocre white man as the standard and then bending to it at the detriment of good ideas, fairness, and equity. Mediocre is a must read. It was inappropriate to yell “Yes!” after every sentence, but that’s how I felt. In some ways, it’s telling you what you already know, but it’s also explaining how deep the problem really is and also affirming that no, it’s not just you. I remember so clearly arguing with my brother when […]

Dismantle the master’s house.

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

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Audre Lorde had no equal, and I’m again disappointed that I never had to read her for any of my literary theory classes in college. She’s a talented writer and a brilliant thinker, well ahead of her time, and reading Sister Outsider was thought-provoking and a bit humbling (for she wrote about things we’re STILL dealing with today–we have so much work to do left). Because this is a collection, Lorde compiles these speeches and essays from a variety of experiences and occasions. Therefore, the […]

Intersections of experience lead to better feminism.

Women, Race, and Class by Angela Y. Davis

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I’m really mad I did not read this book in college, because I think it would helped me develop a more well-rounded feminism. Angela Davis does not use the word “intersectionality” here, but she’s clearly angling for it. I also think that this book is vital for feminists/womanists, because it helps us address complex issues that surround equity for all who identify as women. As a former history major, I was glad to see the long (racist) history surrounding women’s suffrage frankly addressed. Until we […]

Giving Me the Feelings I Express

The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks

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I had a great professor in Seminary who I felt came up short in one regard. She taught our Spiritual Care class and in her lecture on masculinity, she had us watch a video of a movie, the title of which I can’t remember. In it, a deadbeat dad played by (I think) Nick Nolte is depicted in a scene as being unable to relate to his young daughter and getting angry at her when she suggests she wants to see her mother. I cannot […]



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