Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“What I was feeling, I now recognize, was the desire to be one of these people. To be proud and to beam and to look good.”

Party of One: A Memoir in 21 Songs by Dave Holmes

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When I was putting together my TBR pile for this year I specifically went back to lists of much older cannonballs for books I didn’t get to and was bummed about having not read and added a handful of them to this year. I’m having mixed results with that plan, though, although Party of One: A Memoir in 21 Songs by Dave Holmes got three stars from me which is better than the other so far, French Milk (incidentally I added them both in 2016 […]

“Did I ever imagine how things were going to turn out? No, thank God. Why thank God? Had it been that bad? No, of course not. Only quite, quite different. Just as well one didn’t know in advance.”

Change Lobsters and Dance by Lilli Palmer

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I had no recollection of why I purchased this book until about halfway through when David (Edward VIII) and Wallis showed up. Then I realized this must have been cited in some biography I read about him, Wallis, or Jimmy Donahue (as Jimmy is also in this book, and I remember the disastrous dinner party described here, where he jumps off the yacht twice and humilates them in front of Greta Garbo). But putting that whole grim group aside, this was a lovely surprise to […]

“Thirty years ago, I lay in the room of a woman, conceived in a sexual act of rape, being carried during the prenatal period by an unwilling and rebellious mother, finally bursting from the womb only to be tormented in a family whose members I despised or pitied, and brought into association with people whom I never should have chosen.”

My First Thirty Years by Gertrude Beasley

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What a read. My First Thirty Years is the unvarnished and enraged truth of Gertrude Beasley’s life, and it deserves to be read. From the first line, which I’ve used as the title above, she is telling us to listen and to understand. In a country where a large chunk of the population is trying to revert us back to an idealized past, this is the actual truth of so much of that past. There is no magical historical moment where the nuclear family bubbled […]

“That was the entire horror of it. But I didn’t know how to explain that.”

Sea Legs by Jules Bakes and Niki Smith

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This was a random find at the bookstore, which is why I’m such a proponent of wandering around and checking the sections I like once a month or so. You never know! Sea Legs is a middle grade graphic memoir that details Janey’s life on board her parents’ schooner. When the book opens, they’ve spent some time in Florida saving up money so they can start traveling again. Janey has enjoyed being in place long enough to go to school and has made a best […]

Unorthodox and Unashamed

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and a Saint by Nadia Bolz-Weber

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I have been following Nadia Bolz-Weber on social media for a few years now and I subscribe to her newsletter. I find her preaching to be witty, funny, cutting, provocative and deeply spiritual. It has been most welcome over the years as I have tried to deal with the problems of everyday life and the larger fucked up world. Bolz-Weber has written several books but I believe this was the first and it sort of provides the “origin story” for Pastrix Nadia, a Lutheran pastor […]

“Before you sentence the guilty, at least listen through to the end of the story.”

Memoirs of a French Courtesan: Volume 1: Rebellion by Celeste Mogador, Kristen Hall-Geisler (translator)

Memoirs of a French Courtesan: Volume 2: Spectacle by Celeste Mogador, Kristen Hall-Geisler (translator)

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Memoirs of a French Courtesan: Volume 1: Rebellion – 4 stars Before she was the famed courtesan Mogador, Céleste was a young girl with a troubled childhood running with her mother from an abusive stepfather. Sex workers were an integral part of Paris’s bohemian society in the 19th century, but one of the first of them to put her own story down for herself was Céleste Mogador. Having heard plenty on the subject in operas and Les Mis, I was interested in hearing one of […]



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