Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Submit Your Best/Worst Reads of CBR17 by Saturday 12/13  

“And if you trace a flawed narrative about Appalachia back far enough, you’ll often find someone making a profit.”

What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte

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I definitely only picked this up because it was a recommended selection for Read Women challenge task 4 – read a book about or set in Appalachia. I was hoping to find something fictional, but here we are. Elizabeth Catte’s What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia is written as a rebuttal to J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, a book I have not read and have no intention of reading. Watching from the cheap seats I’ve seen Elegy get pulled apart as Vance’s inconsistencies and frankly […]

Outdated theories about a culture of poverty in Appalachia, honed in the 1960s, had become popular once more thanks to Hillbilly Elegy.

What You are Getting Wrong about Appalachia; The First Salute; Why Art? by Elizabeth Catte; Barbara Tuchman; Eleanor Davis

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What You are Getting Wrong About Appalachia – 4/5 Stars This short text on Appalachian issues is actually three essays about some specific topics currently floating about contemporary conversations. The tone of the three essays shifts from academic to polemic depending on the purpose and subject. So while the quote I use in the title might suggest, it’s not simply a reaction to JD Vance, but includes a takedown of JD Vance among other topics. The driving force behind this book has to do with […]



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