Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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How could I pass this up?

You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe

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You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but sometimes the cover makes you laugh and then you decide you should read it. That was the case with You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe. I saw it on NPR’s Best Books of 2020 List and laughed out loud. My interest was also piqued because I’ve recently been exposed to some George Washington history from both Hamilton the musical and Alexander Hamilton the book. Two other things drew me to this book. First, it is written by a woman, which seemed […]

“No, it’s a biography. Like a man would write.”

You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Alexis Coe

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This book opens up with a chart listing all the things that the public consciousness “knows” about George Washington, right next to facts debunking those myths. Which is what they are: myths. As one of America’s Founding Fathers, the man who led the country in the Revolutionary War, and the first President of the United States, he has become more a mythologized figure than an actual person for most people. And as Coe points out in her introduction, even the most rigorous historian and scholar […]

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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