Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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The People Don’t Get Their Way

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

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This should be required reading. It was a bit of a coincidence that the hold I had on this volume at the library became available as the new year rolled around. I listened to the audiobook on my daily walks and was continually struck with the thought of “history repeats itself, history repeats itself.” There were many declarations made by Howard Zinn that could have easily been applied to life in America today. I also coincidentally read the chapter about the end of World War […]

Putting Black women back into the historical narrative.

A Black Women's History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry & Kali Nicole Gross

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This was a really good book for what it was—a survey of Black women’s roles throughout 400 plus years of North American history—but the relatively small 219 page count just wasn’t enough space to really get into the sorts of details I really love when reading about history. I don’t think we can discount the impact of the purpose of the book, though, since its entire aim is to place Black women back into the historical record, and it very much succeeds in that goal. […]

Was It Really Friendship?

Mrs. Lincoln & Mrs. Keckley: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave by Jennifer Fleischner

Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave & Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley

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  While noodling on the internet one day, I came across an article about Mary Lincoln’s personal dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckley. A former slave from Maryland who’d bought her own freedom, Keckley was a master mantua-maker who got herself the coveted position of dressmaker to the president’s wife. There was a little link at the bottom of the article about Keckley’s memoir, and it was too enticing to pass up. Happily, even though it was published in 1868, my library had a copy of it! The […]

I take an odd sort of comfort in knowing that things in America have been just as bad, if not worse, than they are right now.

Shakespeare in a Divided America by James Shapiro

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The 2016 election: we will eventually be far away from that time, but while we wait to heal we will continue to publish works – everything from tweets to films- about how it shaped our current situation. In 2017, the Delacorte Theater  staged a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in Central Park . Shakespeare had been done live in Central Park for years. Julius Caesar had been performed steadily around the world since it debuted in 1599. Caesar has taken on many depictions throughout the […]

Thanks to the CBR Book Club

Kindred by Octavia Butler

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One of my goals for CBR 10 was to take part in one of the Book Club Reads. When this title popped up as the book choice I felt pretty neutral about it; the description, for whatever reason, didn’t intrigue me at all. At the same time, it didn’t sound boring so I figured I would give it a shot. Man, oh man, thank you CBR voters who knew way better than me. I am so glad I read this book. This may end up […]



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