Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Behind the Throne

Emperor of Rome by Mary Beard

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A few months ago, there was a meme going around asking folks how much they thought about the Roman Empire. Rome has been kind of a curiosity to a whole subset of men this generation. As sea levels rise, fascism marches, and prices gouge, men tend to be more conservative and look to the “old ways.” They conveniently leave out the fact that homosexuality was widely practiced, as well as a fact that their odds of being a slave were substantively higher than being a […]

‘since the play has gone down well, give us a clap/ and send us away with applause’

Emperor of Rome by Mary Beard

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CBR15 Bingo – Politics: This book examines the performance and politics of being the emperor of the Roman Empire. Many people can name an emperor of the Roman Empire even more than two thousand years after they lived, and are familiar with the stories of the excesses of their power. But what did being emperor actually entail? In this book, historian Mary Beard argues that being emperor in many ways meant playing the part of ’emperor,’ in the way that the Roman people saw them […]

Spring Cleaning

The Sick Bag Song by Nick Cave

The Lemming Condition by Alan Arkin

Trump and Populism by Michael Kazin

How Do We Look by Mary Beard

Family Life by Russel Banks

Last Train from Perdition by Robert McCammon

The Rule of St Benedict by St Benedict

Theodore Roosevelt by Louis Auchincloss

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The Sick Bag Song by Nick Cave “A young boy climbs a riverbank.” This tour memoir and more or less book of poetry opens up with the image above of a young boy climbing up a riverbank and feeling like he has a brush with a train passing close by. I was girding myself for the possibility that I had decided to read a book that Nick Cave write after the death of his son in a not impossibly similar situation. That would happen a […]

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 […]

“That’s an excellent suggestion, Miss Triggs. Perhaps one of the men here would like to make it.”

Women & Power by Mary Beard

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What do the Odyssey‘s Penelope and Elizabeth Warren have in common? One was told to shut up, the other to sit down, and thus both were denied the right to power and leadership in the form of public speech. Based on two of her lectures concerning women’s relationship with power, Mary Beard demonstrates in this book that attitudes from the Greco-Roman world are still prevalent. This is a really short book, but there is so much thought-provoking information in it, and Beard is so succinct […]

There Are Always Two Sides to Every Story

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

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In 63 BCE, the politician and lawyer Cicero gave four speeches against the senator Catiline whom he accused of being the instigator of a conspiracy to overthrow the government. Historically and probably unfairly, Cicero came out of this as a famous and brilliant orator who saved the republic while Catiline ended up dead and branded a traitor and a villain. This particular episode in the history of Rome, covered in the first chapter, sets the tone of the book and illustrates the problems that often […]



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