Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About esmemoria

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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:

A Bit of a Dud

Finders Keepers by Stephen King

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Bingo: Red Stephen King’s Finders Keepers is the second book of the Bill Hodges trilogy. The first book was Mr. Mercedes, which I enjoyed. This second book was a bit sluggish, although the pacing was fine. The story itself didn’t have a lot of pep. The book centers on Peter, a teenage boy who comes across a stash of money and dozens of Moleskine notebooks full of writings. The stash was put there by a criminal named Morrie, who robbed and killed his favorite author […]

Search for the Historical Jesus

Zealot by Reza Aslan

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Bingo: Migrant. Jesus has often been identified as a migrant, although it is not likely he was born in Bethlehem and fled to Egypt; he was simply born in Nazareth. However, as he grew older, he likely did travel to local cities to work as a laborer. I have a mixed religious history. My grandfather was Jewish, and I am ethnically part Ashkanazi. I was raised a Catholic and while I stopped going to church in my teens, I remained a person of faith until […]

“There is no reason to be troubled because we are absurd”

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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Before reading the subject of this review, Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, I had previously read his Notes from the Underground, Crime and Punishment, and The Brothers Karamazov. I greatly enjoyed all of these books, and can say the same for The Idiot. The story centers on Prince Lev Nikolayevitch Myshkin, called simply prince, who returns to Russia after spending years in Switzerland under the care of a doctor for his epileptic fits. Penniless, he first makes his way to a general who is married to a […]

Surprisingly Dull Bones

The Bone Lady: Life as a Forensic Anthropologist by Mary Manhein

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When I was young, one of my dreamed-of professions was to be an archeologist. I have no propensity for science nor any patience, so needless to say that dream went unfulfilled. But I have remained fascinated by the subject, from digs to dinosaurs to graves. This interest led me to pick up The Bone Lady by Mary Manhein, a surprisingly dull book about her work as a forensic anthropologist. Manhein runs a lab in Louisiana and was given the nickname “The Bone Lady” by colleagues. […]

The End Makes the Book

Allegedly by Tiffany Jackson

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Tiffany Jackson’s Allegedly tells the story of Mary Addison, who was convicted of killing a 3-month old baby when she was nine years old. Mary’s mother was the child’s babysitter, and Mary was very devoted to the child, which made the murder all the more shocking. She is released from criminal custody when she is almost 16 and transferred to a group home. The home is run by a horrible woman and populated with mostly vicious other girls who torment and ostracize Mary. After Mary […]

Are Dinosaurs Dumb? No!

The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History by Stephen Jay Gould

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I am, as several other essays emphasize, an advocate of the position that science is not an objective, truth-directed machine, but a quintessentially human activity, affected by passions, hopes, and cultural biases. I read Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man a few months ago, and mentioned to my brother that while I enjoyed it, for some reason I thought it was going to be a collection of science essays on a variety of topics. My brother promptly sent me Gould’s The Panda’s Thumb: More […]



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