Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Sorry-Grateful

How Sondheim Can Change Your Life by Richard Schoch

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CBR 17 BINGO: White (See cover) When Stephen Sondheim died in November 2021, I lost one of my heroes. A theater nerd in college with a proclivity for lyrics over music, I was won over completely by Sondheim’s poetry. Fans can endlessly debate which of his rhymes is most magnificent–the rhyming of “personable” with “coercin’ a bull” in Company is often cited, though I’m inclined to go with the brilliant throw-away line from Into the Woods regarding Jack’s cow, “There’s no time to sit and […]

“Here is the last stop for all those who come from somewhere else.”

Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays by Joan Didion

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Joan Didion and Bob Dylan are two peas in a pod – insightful, elusive, bug-eyed sunglass’d. I enjoy reading/listening to both of them, if for nothing else than to see what it’s like for an artist to be at the top of their game. I think Didion is at the top of her game when writing about California, and when writing about her family. Sometimes she writes about both. While Didion generally strikes me as someone who presents “Joan Didion” to the world, her tenderness […]

Amusing with a dash of heartbreak

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

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While never a huge David Sedaris fan, I started to appreciate his approach to writing when I read the excerpts from his personal diaries during the pandemic. Sedaris focuses on the little, absurd things in life and weaves an essay around them. His off-the-wall, probing questions might seem unsettling to some, but I suspect he’d make a fantastic dining companion and a hoot to have at parties. For example, in an essay titled “Six to Eight Black Men,” he talks about how he makes a […]

Sit up and take note

Thick and Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom

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Tressie McMillan Cottom is an academic (Sociologist) who also writes for the New York Times and has appeared on The Daily Show. Thick was published in 2019 and was a finalist for the National Book Award. It is a collection of essays on race, gender, politics and culture that are meticulously researched and brilliantly argued. This is the kind of collection that bears taking your time to read. McMillan Cottom gives the reader a lot to think about and made me rethink things I thought […]

The Strange, Fragile, Beautiful World

Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures by Katherine Rundell

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It’s estimated that there are around 7.8 millions animal species on the planet, many of which we know little about. Unfortunately, some may vanish before we can learn much more – which is a pity, because the variety of life on this planet is far more wondrous and strange than anything our imaginations could conjure up. This is a quiet and contemplative peek at the natural world in easy bite-sized installments. Each essay discusses an animal species which threatened in one way or another, covering […]

“Don’t stop beginning. Begin and begin and begin. Begin endlessly—that is, without the taint of even eventual ending.”

All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess by Becca Rothfeld

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Literary critic Becca Rothfeld argues against the modern inclination toward minimalism, and insteads advocates embracing all the messy and irrepressible things that make the human existence so rewarding. I am this book’s target audience, because like Rothfeld I wonder if in the process of streamlining our world we have reached an unpleasantly bland and bloodless zeitgeist. I enjoy colorful and unusual clothes and furniture. I find the aesthetic of minimalism boring. I love the over the top pulp literature of yesteryears. I don’t want the […]



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