Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Shaping our shape of self

Unretouchable by Sofia Szamosi

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While looking at online reader copies that were new to the site I use, I found Bad Kid (a Graphic Memoir): My Life as a Troubled Teen by Sofia Szamosi. It said it was a companion to Unretouchable. Which, of course, meant that if I wanted to read Bad Kid, my brain said, you need Unretouchable. Therefore, off to the library I went to pick up a copy via interlibrary loan. Szamosi discusses the beauty industry and how she is both part of and wants […]

Object Lessons

Blue Jeans by Carolyn Purnell

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Blue jeans are a practically universal garment, but their sheer ubiquity belies their relatively short history and the staggering path they took to hit the mainstream. Blue Jeans is a short non-fiction book from a series called Object Lessons, which dives into the histories of the everyday objects in our lives that we’re so used to that we hardly consider them in any depth. I certainly look at my blue jeans now with fresh eyes, which is entirely the point. The book is divided into […]

Golden Girls with Feet of Clay

The It Girls by Caroline Young

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Nowadays, when one thinks of someone who’s “famous for being famous,” one thinks of the Kardashians or Instagram influencers. But the phenomenon of the It girl is a long and storied one. I read this at about the same time as I read Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century, and they work pretty well as companions – that book describing trendsetting fashion, and this book describing the trendsetters themselves. Young tells the story of It girls through the centuries, who hold such diverse […]

Skirts Just Look So Good on Us!

Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell

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Fashion can say a lot about the people that wear it and the places they occupy in time and space. As such, women starting to wear pants is a shorthand for progress in feminism – but, Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell argues, the evolution of skirts over the twentieth century too has plenty to say. Like the author, I wear a lot of dresses and skirts, mostly because they are an easy way to look like you’ve made an effort, and also let you slouch and lounge around […]

When was the last time your clothes made you smile?

Clothes to Make You Smile: Patrick Kelly Designs His Dreams by Eric Darnell Pritchard and Shannon Wright

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Two things are happening to let us know that time moves on. First, we are starting to get 2026 calendars in (and already have the August 2025-June 2026 planners) at my work, and second, 2026 reader copies are becoming available so we are ready for next year (and here we’re not even halfway through 2025!). But one of those readers (that I found online) which is due mid-January 2026 was Clothes to Make You Smile: Patrick Kelly Designs His Dreams by Eric Darnell Pritchard and […]

Women can make the world

Behind My Doors: The Story of the World's Oldest Library by Hena Khan

Miles of Style: Eunice W. Johnson and the EBONY Fashion Fair by Lisa Brathwaite

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History is a genre I tend to be drawn to. I like most formats it comes in, even true non-fiction if it is done in a biography or a solid presentation that does not get too fancy or lofty. And as I have said before, picture books are a great format as well. Therefore, combining the two can lead to some of my favorite reading, or at least to some really good reading. The first picture book I read is due soon (May 2025) and […]



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