Cannonball Read 13

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The *uick Brown Fox

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

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“I am so fearful, Ella, as to where this all may lead. A silly little letter, to be sure, but I believe its theft represents something quite large and oh so frighteningly ominous.” There is small island called Nollop off the east coast of the United States named after Nevin Nollop, the author of the pangram “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”. In Nollop’s honor they have erected a statue of Nollop’s likeness with his famed sentence hung underneath. One morning, the […]

Old Letters

Letters to Phil: Memories of a New York Boyhood 1848 - 1856 by Gene Shermerhorn

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In trying to find some primary source material on the 19th century history of New York, I stumbled upon Letters to Phil: Memories of a New York Boyhood 1848 – 1856. It was right in the time period I needed, so I took a shot on the old edition. Published in 1982, it’s a slim book, and not much more than the sum of it’s parts on the surface. A New York native named Gene Shermerhorn wrote a series of letters to his nephew, who was […]

For Every One

For Every One by Jason Reynolds

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For Every One by Jason Reynolds is my first attempt at this young adult author. I have not read his novels, which are getting much praise and press, but I found this one and thought “Why not?” Unfortunately, I was surprised at the content as it did not fit what I expected. Fortunately, I was surprised at the content because it gave me something else. This book is not poems as I first thought. But one long poem. But then again, it is not a […]

People who weren’t the homecoming royalty and don’t want to be./Anti-cool is its own cool competition.

Tales of a Punk Rock Nothing by Abram Himelstein and Jamie Schweser

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An impressionable youth of the 1990s loved Tales of a Punk Rock Nothing. It looked and read differently than most of the other books that he owned. The irony of buying an indie punk book in his suburban Barnes & Noble didn’t escape him, but he still enjoyed the book just the same. Fast forward fifteen years of world travel, NPO work, and growing up. A chance reintroduction at a Half-Price Books reunited said youth and said book, and a glorious reunion was had by […]

Unlucky Jason (a more painful Lucky Jim, in letters)

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher

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As an academic, I do enjoy poking fun at myself and my profession every once in awhile. Like any other profession, there is plenty about academia that is ridiculous/absurd/unfair/hilarious. I don’t particularly enjoy Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim (and I suspect that has as much to do with the sort of white-boyisms that populate the novel, and that Jim is kind of a twit), and I haven’t yet read any of David Lodge’s work (I hear The British Museum Is Falling Down is excellent, however). So […]

For younger and older and not necessarily poets

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Marie Rilke

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“The future stands still, dear Mr. Kappus, but we move in infinite space” Franz Xaver Kappus was a young man dreaming of becoming a poet in the early 1903. A great admirer of the already accomplished poet R.M. Rilke, he wrote a letter asking for advice on how to become a poet. This book is 10 letters out of 6 years of correspondence. We read only Rilke’s answers to Mr. Kappus, but the answers are so universal and thorough that we do not need the […]



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