Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I suspect a complete lack of physical affection has led the British monarchy to where it is today.

Spare by Prince Harry

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CBR15 Bingo: Politics – The internal politicking of the British royal family is intriguing and horrifying. While not a British royal super fan, I’ve always been interested in them.  Queen Elizabeth’s corgis were part of the reason I got a corgi of my own. I thought I knew the broad strokes of Harry’s early life; trouble in schools, some drugs, partying, two stints in the military, and then he seemed to come into his own as an adult.  In recent years, I’ve followed the royals […]

“Not to be devastated by my mistake, but instead to be motivated. He spoke to me with the quality one often encounters in truly wise people—forgiveness.”

Spare by Prince Harry

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I had no intention of reading Prince Harry’s memoir. Until I did. I should have known I’d cave, I’m a sucker for memoirs. There’s something about hearing a person’s story in their own words, particularly if that story is contested in some way, as Prince Harry’s has always been. What Spare is, at its core, is a person reckoning with the way in which they were raised, and the very real ways grief and trauma informed their experience of the world. That is the piece […]

A Terribly Sad Book That Probably Shouldn’t Have Been Written at This Point in Time

Spare by Prince Harry

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Honestly, where to begin with this one considering the amount of ink already spilled about it and the endless interviews. I am coming at this from the point of view of someone most interested in pre-WWI royalty, and as someone who is interested in the generational reverberations of child abuse. I am not that invested in who is right in the current generational struggle or really in any of the individuals in this book, and I tried to approach my reading with a fairly open […]

The British Press Need to Do Better

Spare by Prince Harry

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Best for: Those interested in a very different perspective on not just the British royal family overall, but how life in it has impacted Prince Harry and his family. In a nutshell: Member of the British Royal family, second child to Princess Diana and Prince Charles (hence ‘spare’,) provide insight into his childhood, young adulthood, and adulthood, focusing often on the machinations of the British press (and his family’s complicity). Worth quoting: I mean, there’s a lot here, but everyone’s focused on him talking about […]

Let’s Make 2023 Monarchy Free

Spare by Prince Harry

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I wasn’t going to read “Spare” because memoir is one of my least favorite genres and celebrity/political memoirs are usually the worst in terms of quality and content. However, my anti-monarchist curiosity got the best of me after watching the gutter press devolve into hysterics in the lead-up to the book’s publication. It’s not surprising, given that Harry paints UK tabloid culture as the ultimate villain in his life story. If I were The Daily Fail or one of those other rags, I’d be trying […]



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