Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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In Plain Sight

I Had A Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story by Hank Aaron

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Years ago, I used to watch the painfully obnoxious sports commentary show Around the Horn while waiting for Tony and Mike to duke it out on Pardon the Interruption. ATH has since incorporated much better guests, and host Tony Reali is a prince of a guy, but at the time, it was just a bunch of white guys whining about Barry Bonds and tongue bathing Brett Favre. During yet another Bonds session, one of the guys, I think it was Bill Plaschke, contrasted Bonds with Hank Aaron, the man […]

A terrific middle-grade novel about systemic racism, colorism, and…fencing.

Black Brother, Black Brother by Jewell Parker Rhodes

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I’m a huge Jewell Parker Rhodes fan, and in middle-grade literature, she has no equal. She is uncanny at tackling major systemic issues that are not only age-appropriate but widely appealing, and also interesting to read about. I was excited to hear she had a new book out, and I quickly read it, as well. In Black Brother, Black Brother we meet Donte and Trey, two biracial brothers in an integrated family. Their dad is White, their mom is Black. Trey looks like their father, […]

King Her

The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis

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As I’ve gotten older, I’ve shrugged off my manly man view of what real sports are. Cheerleading is a sport. Golf is a sport. Bowling is a sport. And for God’s sake, chess is a sport. I’d rather get sacked by Aaron Donald than try and sit in front of a grandmaster and play them at chess. A few years ago, I read Michael Weinreb’s entertaining The Kings of New York about a chess team at Brooklyn’s Edward R. Murrow High School. Weinreb, a writer who usually entertains me, […]

She overcame death to win Gold

Unbeatable Betty: Betty Robinson, the First Female Olympic Track Field Gold Medalist  by Allison Crotzer Kimmel

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The only thing keeping Unbeatable Betty: Betty Robinson, the First Female Olympic Track Field Gold Medalist  by Allison Crotzer Kimmel from being a 5 is that it felt a little unorganized in places. However, the author has done an amazing job of telling us the story of a woman who is little known in the sports world; even though Betty Robison was literally the first woman to accomplish winning a gold medal in her sport. I was not always feeling that the “big picture” was […]

Sho-Be

Three-Ring Circus: Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty by Jeff Pearlman

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(TW: this book mentions Kobe Bryant’s rape case and so does this review. The book goes into graphic detail; the review does not.) I always enjoy Jeff Pearlman’s sports books and this one was no exception. Just as he did for the Showtime Lakers, so he does for the Shaq-Kobe Lakers. Personally speaking, I hated those teams. I thought they were arrogant and selfish. I rooted hard against them in the Finals every year. But that was also in the time when I didn’t care […]



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