Two themes have emerged for my 2017 Cannonball progress: 1) being pleasantly surprised by books written by celebrities (Cravings, Bossypants, Troublemaker), and 2) clearing my 24 page Goodreads to-read list of a bunch of “humor books” I added in 2009 when they were kinda new and I thought they were funny. You know the kind I mean: People of Walmart…as a book! Or something that wasn’t so horrifically exploitative in the first place, but just majorly stops being funny after half a decade and […]
A 5 star book with a major caveat.
Every Last One is about a mother with three teenage children. They all have very realistic teenage concerns and dramas. There’s depression in the mix, an eating disorder, relationship problems, very well-written dynamics between the kids and their friends and significant others and how they all interplay. Mary Beth’s marriage isn’t really the point but there’s also some very subtle but very real commentary on being married for a long time. The parents are each doing their best to figure out how to effectively parent […]
Stunning photo project or exploitation?
The premise of The Oxford Project is simple, and I suspect it’s one that you’ll either get or really not get. In 1984, Peter Feldstein photographed every resident of Oxford, Iowa (I can’t recall if he ended up photographing every single resident, but if not it was extremely close). The photographs are simple and stark, with people rarely posing but just standing frankly in front of the camera. Sometimes they’re accompanied by a bicycle, a baby, a gun, a lion. In 2004, he went back […]
It’s a pleasure to sit at this old lady’s knee.
It’s been years since I read the first Call the Midwife book, and I only vaguely remember it. When this finally made its way to the top of my Goodreads list, I was a little concerned that the gap would be a problem. Fortunately, Shadows of the Workhouse more or less functions as a standalone book. Knowing the basic workings of Nonnatus House is useful, but hardly required. Whereas Call the Midwife was a pretty straightforward memoir of Jennifer Worth’s time as a midwife working […]