Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Caste is insidious and therefore powerful because it is not hatred, it is not necessarily personal. It is the worn grooves of comforting routines and unthinking expectations, patterns of a social order that have been in place for so long that it looks like the natural order of things.”

Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

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This was really interesting to read back to back with How to Be an Antiracist; they shed light on each other in weird ways. But they are also two very different books! My main takeaway from Caste is that Isabel Wilkerson is a great writer. I’m set to read her first book next month, and I’m now looking forward to it even more. She employs metaphor and other literary techniques in a way that you don’t normally see from non-fiction writers. It brings a depth […]

A small book about big ideas.

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

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I now see why this has been a bestseller. I mean, I loved his first book, so I figured I would like this one, too, but his first book was a straight up history, and this one was much more of a genre mish-mash. I didn’t at all realize going in that a large portion of it would be memoir, and that turned out to be the best part of the book! I finished this book on January 6th. It is ruining my reviews, so […]

It’s the little things…

Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to Happiness by Bill Bailey

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Bill Bailey was apparently much more productive than most of us have been during this pandemic, having used our first UK lockdown to write this Remarkable Guide to Happiness. Despite the title, this isn’t exactly a self-help book and Bailey hasn’t swallowed the Little Book of Calm (aah, Black Books. I am definitely due a re-watch) This is a very good thing, as I think I’m actually allergic to that genre, so was glad to find this is actually a gently lovely tour through the […]

I still miss you, Space Mom

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher

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3.5 stars On the 27th of December 2016, Carrie Frances Fisher, probably best known worldwide as the actress who portrayed Princess Leia Organa in six Star Wars movies died of heart failure. I bought this audiobook on the same day in honour of her memory, but haven’t really felt up to listening to it before now. Carrie Fisher is probably the celebrity whose death has hit me the hardest. Heath Ledger, Alan Rickman, and David Bowie all upset me, but with Carrie Fisher, I felt genuine and […]

Dodger Blues

Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between by Eric Nusbaum

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If you’re a sports fan with a social conscience, you’ve probably had that moment where you realize that sports, professional and collegiate, are a labor-exploiting racist racket. It’s comparable to being a kid and realizing Santa Claus isn’t real. I’ve had those moments too, long before the backlash to Colin Kaepernick’s protest or seeing the words “Black Lives Matter” on a basketball court. Eric Nusbaum, a sports fan like me, had it when he was a kid, when an octogenarian former activist and HUAC victim […]

Narfna, thank you for reviewing Ace, the book I didn’t know I needed.

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About, Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen

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During Cannonball Bingo, I read The Sound of Stars in which a character identifies as ace or maybe demi-ace.  The use of ace as an identifier was unfamiliar to me and a google search later brought me to the definition of ‘ace’ being a shorthand for asexual.  My initial thought was that was interesting as I hadn’t been familiar with the term but then ‘ace’ got tucked away. Then I read Narfna’s review  and had the realization that asexuality was something I needed to look further […]



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