Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Long Road to Brighton

There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History by Rory Carroll

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In 1984, the IRA killed five people and came dangerously close to assassinating then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – and yet this disaster has gone mostly undiscussed in recent years. In this book, Carroll brings together the long chain of events which led up to the bombing, and unravels the complicated investigation that followed. Having been to school in both the United States and India, I like to think that I have gained a wider perspective on world history than I would have otherwise, but there […]

The Genealogy of Southern Cooking

The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty

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This is a book that showcases my shortcomings as a reviewer. I really enjoyed listening to this book, but am struggling to write about it. It is a memoir, a history of southern cuisine and a book on genealogy. Twitty reads the book himself which works well because the book is a very personal journey. He describes himself as an “obsessive cook with compulsive genealogist tendencies who can point to a map of Africa, Europe, North America, and with it, the South, and guide you […]

Madeline’s Working-Class Older Brother

Hotel Splendide by Ludwig Bemelmans

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Ludwig Bemelmans recalls his time as a waiter at a fabulous hotel in New York City, complete with lots of humor, tragedy, and a cast of colorful coworkers. I picked up this book because I love behind-the-scenes stories, and because I was interested in learning about the fabulous excess of 1920s New York City from a working-class perspective. It was only after I started reading it that I realized that the Bemelmans also wrote the Madeline series, about the little girls who lived “In an […]

At the very crowded intersection of Black History and Banned Books

Black Was the Ink by Michelle Coles

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CBR15passport new to you authors On February 1, the first day of Black History month, the news hit that fascist Governor DeSantis disapproved of the curriculum for the AP African American History course and would ban it from being taught in Florida. Not long after this story aired, it was revealed that Florida officials and AP officials had been negotiating the content of this course for some time and it looks like the AP/College Board basically caved to reactionary political demands and agreed to censor […]

A book about butts!

Butts: A Backstory by Heather Radke

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This was a fun book, just as the cover and (extremely good) title promised. Butts: A Backstory is a cultural microhistory of the butt that pretty much covers every aspect of it that you would want or expect it to. We start with the evolutionary purpose of the butt and then move on to such topics as: Sarah Baartman (“The Hottentot Venus”, and why everything about what happened to her and even that moniker is super racist and tragic); the impact of butts on fashion […]

‘The Habsburgs were the first rulers whose power encompassed the world, and they achieved greatness by luck and by force.’

The Habsburgs: The Rise and Fall of a World Power by Martyn Rady

In The Last Emperor of Mexico: The Dramatic Story of the Habsburg Archduke Who Created a Kingdom in the New World by Edward Shawcross

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For all the royal watching going on right now, its the British Royal Family that’s hugging the spotlight. And, really, how could they not? Liz the Second—who we all thought was destined to live forever—shockingly popped her clogs last year. And now her grandson seems to be taking his turn airing out the dirty laundry, much to people’s delight. But the lives of royals are always ripe for high drama, if you are into that kind of thing. So I’m going to ring in the […]



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