Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“The further you get from home, the weirder things get.”

The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained by Colin Dickey

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Colin Dickey is a writer on the fringe. His books are about those who fear secret societies (Under the Eye of Power), an American history of ghosts (Ghostland), and monsters/aliens (The Unidentified). In The Unidentified, Dickey meets with and explores what it is that draws people to fringe beliefs. One of his theories is that these fringe beliefs, be they in cryptids or aliens, provide us belonging, comfort, and enchantment in a disenchanted world: “Much of what attracts people to these fringe beliefs is a […]

Thought-Provoking and Meditative

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell

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Best for: Those who are interested in being more intentional with their time and attention. In a nutshell: Artist and author Odell explores ways to be more intentional with our time, and how that relates to community and environment. Worth quoting: “That tiny, glowing world of metrics cannot compare to this one, which speaks to me instead in breezes, light and shadow, and the unruly, indescribably detail of the real.” “The impulse to say goodbye to it all, permanently, doesn’t just neglect our responsibility to […]

Unexpected Delight

This Book Will Make You Kinder: An Empathy Handbook by Henry James Garrett

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Best for: All of humanity (but mostly the privileged folks). In a nutshell: Philosopher Garrett makes his case for the reasons we should be kind, and the ways people falter at it. Worth quoting: “The problem is not that oppressed people don’t empathize enough with their oppressors; the problem is that privileged folk don’t empathize enough with the oppressed.” “Our beliefs about the inevitability of certain forms of suffering are intimately connected with our beliefs about what type of world is possible.” “If you believe […]

Burned. Out.

Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen

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Best for: All of us, collectively, as a society, who are fed up with the expectations that we just work work work. In a nutshell: Author Petersen explores how the Millennial generation has been put into basically a really shit situation. Worth quoting: “This isn’t a personal problem. It’s a societal one — and it will not be cured by productivity apps, or a bullet journal, or face mask skin treatments, or overnight fucking oats.” “Just because middle-class parents decided that a certain style of […]

Incisive and Interesting Essays on Orthodox Jewish Childhood

Artifacts of Orthodox Jewish Childhood by Dainy Bernstein (editor)

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Artifacts of Orthodox Childhoods is a book of personal and critical essays that cover a historically under-researched topic. The book is inclusive of a wide range of viewpoints and backgrounds, and it benefits from the thought that went into the editing of the essays and the impulse to widen instead of narrow the people who contributed. I appreciated that this book didn’t retread the same familiar ground we see in the media of the triumphant escape from the backwards evil of Ultra-Orthodoxy. Instead, the collection gave […]

Why Are We Okay With Just Two Days Off?

Overtime: Why We Need a Shorter Working Week by Will Stronge & Kyle Lewis

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Best for: Workers. In a nutshell: Stronge and Lewis make a simple, elegant, and frankly pretty difficult to refute case for shortening the work week to four days or fewer. Worth quoting: “[B]eing able to relax, spend time with loved ones, pursue self-directed activity and have freedom from a boss are all essential parts of what it means to be human. Time is life after all.” Why I chose it: Verso books had a sale 😀 Review: When I really think about it, is is […]



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