Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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I can see why she won the Pulitzer for this, but it wasn’t completely to my tastes.

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

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I’m really glad I did the audio version for this one, because I’m not sure my raccoon brain (shiny things only!) would have had the patience to sit through it otherwise, and it’s worth sitting through. Robin Miles is, as always, a great narrator. This book wasn’t quite what I was expecting, either. I had actually never learned about the Great Migration in all my many (many) years of school, which is not really surprising, but is disheartening, so I was excited to get into […]

Somehow, both Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton

Henry Clay: America's Greatest Statesman by Harlow Giles Unger

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Were you to ask me, prior to my reading this book, who Henry Clay was, I would’ve been able to tell you that he was an important US politician in the early-19th century who unsuccessfully ran for president a few times. Which, I suppose, is more of a legacy than most people get. Born in 1777 Virginia, and launched a legal career twenty years later in Kentucky. He was such a powerful speaker, and so successful in court, that he was elected to the House […]

Two out of three in Caste bingo (is not a game I want to win)

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

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I imagine at the end of the day this book is more like 3.5 stars that I am rounding up. I’d say it’s three star for what it is trying to do, but four stars if I take it at what (I thought) was face value. Which is to say, I just finished this book and feel 50/50 convinced by Wilkerson’s thesis that America suffers from a caste issue, as opposed to (or, above a) race issue. I am Indian-American, so taking a step back […]

take a look! it’s in *this* book!

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

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Why not take a break from the world with a strangely soothing tale of a library fire? That question appears to be pure chaos, but seriously: wouldn’t it be nice to let a meticulous journalist and storyteller narrate a well-researched account of history, memory, and true crime? Good news: you can do it! Just plug your headphones in and let Susan Orlean and The Library Book transport you to a different world. Orleans covers more than just the true-crime glitter that is strewn around the  […]

Vroom vroom!

Engines of Change: A History of the American Dream in Fifteen Cars by Paul Ingrassia

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I’m sure the subtitle has you curious, so here are some clues about the fifteen vehicles explored in this great book. Yes, there are only thirteen items listed below, but that’s because a few chapters overlap and include more than one exact make or model of vehicle. The Big Bang Bolsheviks, Nazis, and High-Performance Racers Fins Hitler to Hippies Explosions Iacocca DeLorean, but not that DeLorean Globalisation and Quality Iacocca II Yuppies Iacocca III Red(neck) Dawn Full Gosling Now to the review. The only downside […]

History of several kinds

The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty

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I have to admit up front that I did not completely finish The Cooking Gene; I had it from the library and ran out of renewals before I had to return it. This is not a fast read if you want to really get the content and the feeling. I don’t mean that the style is hard to read; on the contrary, it’s written in a pretty conversational way. What made it slower for me was the depth of what was being presented. This came […]



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