Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“I can’t help wondering whether I was born under a galaxy of lucky stars.”

I Married the World by Elsa Maxwell

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Elsa Maxwell is a curious figure in world history because she was famous for throwing amazing parties and being friends with famous people, but she also shows up in the background of other biographies and memoirs of the period with what can only be described as a dark air of menace — as in Philip Van Rensselaer’s Million Dollar Baby, where Elsa is portrayed as a person who lures rich young women into marriages with con artist playboys and then takes a cut of the […]

“I can’t help thinking that the best thing that could happen to him, and to the country, would be for him to break his neck.”

In Royal Service: The Letters and Journals of Sir Alan Lascelles 1920-1936 (Vol. 2) by Sir Alan Lascelles (Edited by Duff Hart-Davis)

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This is a collection of mainly letters to friends and family from Sir Alan (“Tommy”) Lascelles, who worked as Assistant Private Secretary/Private Secretary for Edward VIII (David), the Governor-General of Canada, George V very briefly before his death, and George VI. There are also some letters from his wife and children in here as well to flesh out the portrait. The main reason to read this is the draw of Tommy’s descriptions and insight into David’s psychology and activities as the Prince of Wales, and […]

Gangsters vs. Nazis – some interesting philosophical questions

Gangsters vs. Nazis by Michael Benson

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Full disclosure right from the start, I am a practicing Jew. So when my friend lent me this book, Gangsters vs. Nazis: How Jewish Mobsters Battled Nazis in Wartime America, I knew I had to read it. Many may not realize this, but the Nazi movement was quite strong in the United States in the 1930s, especially within the German American community. One of the first surprises this book had for me was who gave the initial impetus behind the Jewish mobsters attacking the Nazis: […]

Snatch, Lewks, Shade, and Werk (an no, there are no typos here)

Legendary Children: The First Decade of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Last Century of Queer Life by Tom Fitzgerald, Lorenzo Marquez

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Legendary Children: The First Decade of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Last Century of Queer Life covers a wide range of subjects in shallow depth. The introduction is open about this, and the authors suggest you go ask Youtube and Google about further details. On the one hand, this is a good goal, to encourage people to further explore things of interest. On the other hand, it can also be a problem such as when a queen named Michelle is important but not discussed much […]

A Tale as old as Time

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

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At the turn of the century, a cleft-lipped, clubfooted boarding house owner in rural Korea marries fifteen year old Yangjin, the third daughter of an impoverished farmer. She is no beauty, but neither is Hoonie, her husband. They’re a good match. Together, they run a boarding house in a small, seaside town on an idyllic but poor part of the Korean coast. They try to have children, and after their first three babies die their fourth, a daughter named Sunja, is born. Hoonie dotes upon […]

out of the way, Mr. Hughes. Let the real stars shine.

Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood by Karina Longworth

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You’ve seen The Aviator, yes? If not, maybe you know that it’s about Howard Hughes? Yes- the Spruce Goose guy. Yes, the keep on failing upwards guy. Yes, the “keep your pee in jars” guy. We’ve all heard or seen at least a little bit about Howard Hughes. His reach was wide and heavy, and he swept away businesses, careers, and entire studios in his wake. Karina Longworth, author of Seduction and podcaster extraordinaire, covered Howard Hughes’s Hollywood during a whole season of her phenomenal podcast a […]



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