Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.”

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

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If we- and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others- do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world It is time to listen. James Baldwin had a voice unlike any other. He transcends country, creed, and time. His work is astonishing and terribly important. The […]

A Quick Read with Transformative Power

Love Wins by Rob Bell

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“A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better. It’s been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’s message of love, […]

Wrong book, wrong time.

I'm Perfect, You're Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah's Witness Upbringing by Kyria Abrahams

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This was all right. I wish I would have liked it better. I very much wish I would have tracked down a copy of I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed way back in 2009 when I added it to my TBR. I think that version of me would have been in a much better place to appreciate it. This is a book by a woman who grew up in a Jehovah’s Witness household, and it is written in a humorous style, as you might be able to […]

“It is visceral, it is personal, it is gleeful, and it is triumphant”

Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel M. Lavery

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While explaining to a group of medievalists his feelings on reading pieces that are older than a hundred years old, Daniel states ‘ I feel a profound sense of triumph and superiority over the author’ I said, ‘because they are foolish enough to be dead, while I am young and gloriously alive. Not because I think their ideas are outdated or anything like that. It has nothing to do with how they think, or how we see the world differently. It is visceral, it is […]

eating vegetables: the essay collection

Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino

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Now here me out: there are lots of reasons to eat vegetables. Sometimes your body is in revolt because you’ve had nothing but pizza all weekend. Sometimes you’ve made a new commitment to “take better care” of yourself. Sometimes you just really want some kale, damn it. Sometimes you just want to smother some broccoli in neon-orange-movie-theater-nacho cheese. Vegetables are good for you, vegetables are tasty, they can be prohibitively expensive- especially if fresh, but sometimes you just have to fight your way through a […]

For the cynics and realists…

Inspired by Rachel Held Evans

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Rachel Held Evans passed away earlier this year, and the world is a lonelier place without her writing. This is her most recently published book, and reading it after her death just added a layer of sadness that I didn’t expect. Growing up in a conservative Christian environment, she was always the “good church girl”… but things started falling apart in her faith when she began asking questions. How can we say that God is loving when the Bible says that He ordered the massacre […]



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