Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A friendly guide to owning a car

Mechanic Shop Femme’s Guide to Car Ownership: Uncomplicating Cars for All of Us by Chaya M. Milchtein

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When I was 14, my dad told me that he would teach me to drive on his 1974 Volkswagen van, but first I had to read Zen and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance, and we would then take parts of the van apart so I understood how it worked and how to fix it. This was in the ’90s, and, owing to a combination of eternal coolness and bad financial blows, that van was his beloved daily driver, not a restored show piece. The way […]

The Yugo was a lemon, but this lemonade is more Country Time powder than fresh-squeezed

The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History by Jason Vuic

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I wanted to love this one, I really did! Much like my affinity for the dopey little Yugo, I thought I could at least love this book ironically. Unfortunately, I found myself feeling like no Yugo customers found themselves feeling: bland pleasantness. I love a good micro-history, and I love a good world-wide failure, and while this book is well-researched, it just could not hold my attention. Perhaps it was because I listened as opposed to reading, but I frequently felt like I had somehow […]

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 […]

Start your engines

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In The Princess and the Pit Stop the use of the different fairy tale characters is clever, but overall it is the race Vanellope of Wreck it Ralph entered with every “twisted fairy tale pun” possible. Yet, Tom Angelberger can be forgiven for that as the book is just plain funny and well done. It is perfect for the four to eight-year-old crowd. Clever illustrations of Dan Santat with his signature style and great colors help this book to be a more fun read. It […]

And We’re off to Bed

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Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Car says Kate Dopirak and Mary Peterson. And our little car is off beeping goodnight to all his friends. And by the end, pulls in back at home, sleepy and ready to go to bed himself. The end. Sadly, there is not a lot of text to this book for the toddler crowd. The text loses traction for many reasons. The least being the short amount of text. The main one is the story has been done before. However, if you are […]



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