Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Lillian Hellman (2); Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar (1); Mary Rowlandson (1); Sherman Alexie (1)

Watch on the Rhine by Lillian Hellman

The World Record Book of Racist Stories by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar

The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson by Mary Rowlandson

"Captivity" by Sherman Alexie

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“This book is dedicated to all white people everywhere…Just kidding! The opposite of that! This book is dedicated to our family and friends who experienced all these stories with us…Just kidding, this book is dedicated to El Debarge!” The World Record Book of Racist Stories I normally quote the first line of the book, but here that line is scene-setting and doesn’t say much out of context. So I quote the dedication, and if you haven’t read the first book, you can see what kind […]

Paula Vogel (1), Lynn Nottage (1), Dario Fo (1), Lillian Hellman (1-2), Cormac McCarthy (1)

How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel

Fabulation by Lynn Nottage

The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman

The Autumn Garden by Lillian Hellman

The Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo

The Counselor by Cormac McCarthy

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How I Learned to Drive “Sometimes to tell a secret, you first have to teach a lesson.” I first read this book in college when I was taking an Intro to Theater class in college where among other things I had to read a bunch of plays and see a bunch of performances. I reread it in part because I know there’s a new performance or maybe recent performance out there. The title “How I Learned to Drive” refers specifically to some “driving lessons” with […]

Hellman’s Spicy Mayo

Maybe by Lillian Hellman

The Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman

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Maybe – 3/5 Stars Maybe is a short novella, and possibly the only in Hellman’s career. It’s hard to know exactly what the book is because it’s written as a mini-biography circulating around a specific interaction. Normally I wouldn’t think too much about this distinction but Hellman wrote three quite famous and quite popular memoirs later in her career, so this little book coming out about 10 years later and just two years before she died raises a few small questions. The book itself begins […]

Little foxes, little foxes, little foxes made of ticky-tacky

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I honestly thought this play was going to be about a middle-aged woman taking care of a bunch of children. And I guess it kind of is, in a way. Instead, it’s about a turn of the 20th century Southern family squabbling over inheritance, business interests, and their own truly awful natures. In the movie version, which I have not seen, Bette Davis plays the lead role of the sister who sort of tries to hold it all together. The plot involves the family yelling […]



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