Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Any effective solution to eradicating American racism must involve Americans committed to anti-racist policies” – CBR12Bingo “How to”

Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi

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This book fits the “How to” square by teaching me how to be a better anti-racist.  It is not enough to be against racism, one must be actively anti-racist, which is different.  I am a white woman and in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, came to realize that I was woefully under educated about the problem of racism in America.  At the time all sorts of recommended reading lists came out and Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas […]

The Union Forever

Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson

The Golden Gizmo by Jim Thompson

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Reviewing two books here, one of which I have a lot to say about and do, the other I have little and do not… Battle Cry of Freedom 5/5 Unquestionably the ur-text on why the Civil War happened, McPherson examines all angles, the social, political and military. Not a stone is left unturned. Yet this book is remarkably readable. Very few parts of it dragged and the ones that did were the ones that I wasn’t particularly interested in in the first place. McPherson doesn’t set […]

Too Much and Too Little

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

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Rivers Solomon tells an unflinching tale of slavery and survival, set in a future that is horrifically similar to both America’s dreadful past and terrible present. They sugarcoat nothing; what else would you expect from a story that starts with a gruesome amputation? I have to applaud Solomon for writing a brutal and gut wrenching story. They shout out the horrors of racism, giving graphic depictions of brutality. Black women are tortured, raped, and publicly executed, and Solomon makes you stare at these scenes of […]

I take an odd sort of comfort in knowing that things in America have been just as bad, if not worse, than they are right now.

Shakespeare in a Divided America by James Shapiro

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The 2016 election: we will eventually be far away from that time, but while we wait to heal we will continue to publish works – everything from tweets to films- about how it shaped our current situation. In 2017, the Delacorte Theater  staged a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in Central Park . Shakespeare had been done live in Central Park for years. Julius Caesar had been performed steadily around the world since it debuted in 1599. Caesar has taken on many depictions throughout the […]

An excellent adaptation of a classic novel

Kindred by Octavia Butler

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Some stories hit you harder than others. Reading this graphic novel, shortly after watching the film Harriet, struck like a thunderbolt. Some people, mostly belonging to a certain political party, have attempted to make slavery seem not so bad. Which is why works like Kindred are so important. In Kindred, Dana, a young black woman, married to a white man in 1976, finds herself transported back the mid 1800s to save a white ancestor of hers. She bounces back and forth between the time periods […]

It was fine!

You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe

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The title is fun! The cover is cheeky! The opening quote from Brad Neely’s beloved “Washington” video was greatly appreciated! It seemed like we were off to the races, but then… … … it got awkward. I listened to this as an audio book. The performance was fine, but the layout of the opening was just a mess. It probably worked better on paper, but the book started with ten minutes of list-reading. Then a prologue. Then an introduction. Then more list reading. I found […]



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