New for 2026 we will be building Cannonball Read community bookshelves. Don’t worry, no carpentry skills will be required. Throughout the year, as part of our CBR Diversions, we will be asking you to follow a particular theme to add your book suggestions to our bookshelf. No review to write, just comment with a book that fits the description for you. You are welcome to also include a picture of the book, a picture of you and the book, or some other appropriate image. We will build these bookshelves virtually in our Goodreads account.
Let’s get started. This month’s theme is your favorite book set in a place you have lived. I spent the first 23 years of my life in Brooklyn (yes, that is why I sound like I do – you can take the girl out of Brooklyn, but you can’t take the Brooklyn out of the girl?).
There are lots of books set in Brooklyn and I read a lot of historical fiction set in NYC. However, I don’t always like them. I will start with some obvious choices I did not pick because they do not reflect the Brooklyn I knew and loved: Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín and Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan (yes, Manhattan Beach is location in Brooklyn, the beach I went to as a kid).
Instead, I will sing the praises of The Two-Family House by Lynda Cohen Loigman. The book takes place in the Jewish section of Brooklyn in the late 1940’s in a two-family house with one brother’s family upstairs and the other brother’s family downstairs. I grew up in a two-family house in Brooklyn, with my grandparents downstairs and my family upstairs. Although it was many years later than the time period in this book, and we were Italian not Jewish, so much of this book rings true to me. I highly recommend this book, even if you have never set foot in Brooklyn,
Pictured is the cover of The Two-Family House and the two-family house I grew up in.
Now it is your turn, comment below with a book set in a place you have lived. Let us know why you chose it and any personal connections you might have to this book. Feel free to include visuals. Check out our our Goodreads shelf for this topic.
We will be having our first Zoom book chat of the year for people registered for this year’s Cannonball Read 18 on Saturday January 24 at 11 am EST. It is a great chance to talk books with other Cannonballers and ask any questions you might have about how things work. Not a member of Cannonball Read 18 yet? Sign up today.
