Zora Neale Hurston – Page 2 – Cannonball Read 17

A middle-grade mystery inspired by Zora Neale Hurston

Zora and Me by Victoria Bond and T. R. Simon

December 25, 2020 by teresaelectro 1 Comment

Victoria Bond and T. R. Simon took Zora Neale Hurston’s life as literary inspiration for their joint debut novel, Zora and Me. Framed as a middle-grade mystery, we follow the adventures of a fictionalized Zora through the eyes of her best friend, Carrie. The two curious girls and their friend Teddy are given mostly free rein to explore their small town of Eatonville, Florida. They play in the woods and are often given candy from the owner of the general store, Joe. When an alligator […]

My special circle included Edna Ferber, one of the most prolific writers of her time–a scold, a snob, a low-profile dominatrix whose corseted asperity was never far from busting out.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? by Lee Israel

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

Good Bye to All That by Robert Graves

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston

Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

Harriet Tubman by Ann Petry

September 23, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This post with multiple reviews represents a clearing of the cache of backlogged Audible audiobooks (mostly quite short) that I am trying to work my way through. My audiobook TBR is significantly longer than my paper book TBR, which is almost always less than 10 at a time. Can Your Ever Forgive Me? – 4/5 Despite the party line from English teachers about plagiarism and fraud and academic honesty, I do love a good con artist. And literary con artists have always had a […]

Their Eyes is a 1930s novel that is still entirely relevant today

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

June 19, 2020 by Mobius_Walker Leave a Comment

I don’t know why it took me this long to read this book. It was lyrical beauty. Their Eyes Were Watching God follows Janie Crawford through her three marriages in the 1930s South all while she explores her own sense of self, her identity, and her relation to her community. The dichotomy of dialogue and prose narration and description is a marvel. The dialogue is written in a Southern dialect full of life and energy. While it might take some time getting used to (unless you’re […]

“Life, inexhaustible, goes on. And we do too. Carrying our wounds and our medicines as we go.”

Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston

July 7, 2019 by Sophia Leave a Comment

I first encountered Zora Neale Hurston when I read Their Eyes Were Watching God from my list of 50 Books Every Woman Should Read Before She Turns 40. I found it surprisingly moving and relatable. So, when I saw that another book that Hurston had written was recently published, I figured it was worth reading. Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” (2018) is the non-fiction recounting by Cudjo Lewis to Zora Neale Hurston of being captured in Africa, shipped to the United States through the middle passage, […]

The middle of a novel is a state of mind. Strange things happen in it. Time collapses.

October 15, 2018 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Changing My Mind – 4/5 Stars So this post is a compendium of reviews based initially on my reading of this, Zadie Smith’s early collection of essays. These essays are not part of an intentional collection and represent a set number of years of nonfiction writing projects for Smith. The best of them are the reviews, including and sometimes especially her movie reviews, longform journalism (which is the least interesting, if not impactful writing in the book), writing about writing, and writing about her father. […]

Always remember: This is a true story

June 6, 2018 by lowercasesee 1 Comment

In roughly 1841, Oluale Kossola was born in West Africa, near modern-day Benin. In 1960 his village was decimated by the neighboring Dahomey and he, along with more than one hundred other human beings, were sold to white slave traders. The slave ship Clotilda bore them across the Atlantic to the Mississippi river and into Alabama where he was sold to a plantation in Mobile. There he was renamed Cudjo Lewis and there he worked until 1865 when Union soldiers told him he was free. This is all […]

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Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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