Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About esmemoria

CBR12 participant
CBR13 participant
CBR14 Participant
CBR14 Bingo Badges
CBR16 Participant
CBR17 Participant
CBR17 Levels

Eager to get back on the horse this year! In my walking around life, I miss my old, blind pug (the Ancient Mariner), help amazing college students become teachers, and tie an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: esmemoria's Quick Questions interview.)

esmemoria's Reviews:

Don’t Judge a Character By Its Cover

Silent Scream by Angela Marsons

by Leave a Comment

Angela Marsons’s Silent Scream is an excellent, solidly plotted murder mystery. Detective Inspector Kim Stone and her team investigate a series of murders tied to a children’s home, something that resonates for Stone due to her extensive time spent in the foster system. The beginning of the book moves briskly and gets right into the first murder. In between the main narrative, Marsons weaves in an anonymous malevolent character’s point of view in short italicized chapters. I tend to like that in my mysteries. I […]

A Brilliant Graphic Memoir

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

by 3 Comments

I moved to San Francisco from New York in 1990. One of the ways I fell in love with the City was by voraciously reading the newspapers. There were two regular newspapers, one a morning edition and one that was published in the afternoon. There were also free papers like The Bay Guardian, similar to the Village Voice in NY. In one of the free papers–I can’t remember which now–there was a cartoon Dykes to Watch Out For, drawn by Alison Bechdel. It was funny […]

True Crime Bringing Lives to Light

I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara

by Leave a Comment

Michelle McNamara’s I’ll be Gone in the Dark about the Golden State Killer (previously known as the East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker) is certainly a true crime book about a vicious murderer and his victims. But it is also a story of investigators who never give up, anonymous internet detectives poring over evidence, and McNamara herself, a compassionate writer with a mind like a knife. It is a different kind of tragedy that McNamara died before her book was published and before they found the […]

Murder Makes Growing Old Fun

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

by 1 Comment

Another Cannonballer recently read The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman (review here), and it sounded like my kind of frothy mystery mixed with real characters. The Thursday Murder Club is made up of residents of a senior living community in England. The four club members are distinctly drawn and altogether delightful. Osman makes them three dimensional, despite the jolly tone, and they each have heartbreaks of one or another. One of the things I loved about the book is how fun it made senior […]

Roar! We are But a Speck in Time

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte

by 6 Comments

Tell me I’m not alone: sometimes I’m sitting somewhere, minding my own business, when the thought intrudes, “I can’t believe that dinosaurs were real.” It just seems so impossible. Surely they are made-up movie creatures. How can such amazing beings have once roamed (and dominated) the world? Well, Steve Brusatte’s The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of Their Lost World tells you all about it. And I loved every second of it. Beware: this book will give you an existential crisis […]

The Courage to Start Running

The Courage to Start by John Bingham

by 2 Comments

I found The Courage to Start by John Bingham an incredibly inspiring read. Bingham is well known for his writings about runners who are “penguins.” A penguin is a runner that might be slow, have an unusual stride, is often in the far back of the starting line, but is fulfilled. Bingham talks less about the technical aspects of running and more about the psychological and emotional growth that comes from regular practice. While he doesn’t frame it as such, he has a Buddhist way […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo