Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A punch in the gut, but make it literary

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

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I expected this book to be about sexuality and Paris, in the way perhaps that A Moveable Feast is, or any of the other million Paris-based love stories. Honestly, I should have known better.  It is kind of about sexuality!  But it’s also about so many other things that by the end of the book I had stopped thinking about it as a love story at all. On the second page or so, we already know that our protagonist, David, is in Paris, but about […]

Can I Just Say “Wow!” and Leave It at That?

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

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What an incredible book. I knew from reading If Beale Street Could Talk that James Baldwin was a good writer, but it is rare for me to appreciate a book on just a literary level. The prose, the symbolism, the way it’s so clear what the narrator is experiencing even though he himself is hiding from his feelings—it was phenomenal. Written in the 1950s and set in Paris, the novel follows narrator David through his relationship with Giovanni and the aftermath of its ending. We know from […]

“The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world’s definitions”

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

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There is no American truth teller like James Baldwin. I always come away from his writing–whether fiction or nonfiction–changed. I don’t know how he could hold so much clear-eyed rage and pain alongside so much love and dignity. He never spared anyone from the truth, even himself. His book The Fire Next Time is a short book with only two essays, but he packs so much into them. The first essay is a letter to his nephew, called “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew […]

Beautiful, Emotional, and Sadly Still Relevant

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

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This book is beautiful and sad and infuriating, especially in that it is still so relevant 50 years after it was written. It was a hard book to read at times but so well-done and worth it. I was hooked on the story of 19-year-old Tish, who is pregnant and engaged to Fonny—who is in jail awaiting trial for a violent crime he didn’t commit. As one might expect from Baldwin, there is a lot of focus on racism, sexism, and racial injustice, especially within […]

This is me writing 600 words about a book I barely remember.

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

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I watch a lot of YouTube. Like, the vast majority of everything I watch is on YouTube. Everything from podcasts and history documentaries to British panel shows like Taskmaster. The one thing I haven’t had much luck with is book chanels, though. Which isn’t to say there isn’t a ton of literary content on there – but most of what’s out there, that I’ve found, is book reviews. Which I obviously can’t say anything bad about – after all, look at what I’m doing now. But […]

This is the biography review

Gifts from Georgia's Garden: How Georgia O'Keeffe Nourished Her Art by Lisa Robinson

Jimmy’s Rhythm & Blues: The Extraordinary Life of James Baldwin by Michelle Meadows

A Grand Idea: How William J. Wilgus Create Grand Central Terminal by Megan Hoyt

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I was into biographies as a kid. Yet, I didn’t have as many selections as we have today. Mostly because only so many were made, only so many were allowed due to age limits, space and only so many my schools and libraries could afford. Yet, one thing that has stayed the same throughout the years, is we tend to have the same people. We have Amelia E. Or Helen Keller. Or Dr. M. L. King. Or the hottie of the moment (Swift, Styles). Therefore, […]



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