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:

An Argument Against Immutability and Scientific Racism

The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould

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Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man is an in-depth analysis and refutation of biological determinism–what Gould calls “a theory of limits” and is a “general proposition [that] holds that society follows nature, and that social rank reflects innate worth.” In the discussion of intelligence, biological determinism and the hereditarian theory of IQ has led to classist and racist beliefs that there is such a thing as an inherited, immutable intelligence factor, and that no environmental changes or study can affect it. The idea propagated […]

The Pursuit of Justice

All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby

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S.A. Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed is a satisfying crime novel that has deeper layers. Black sheriff Titus Crown oversees Charon County in the state of Virginia. The novel starts out with a school shooting, but soon leads to much darker crimes. Crown is a fully fleshed out character. A good man haunted by something that happened when he was an FBI agent, his life is orderly to the extreme. Inside, he carries the grief of his mother’s death and a highly developed sense of […]

Mediocre Mysteries

Murder by the Book by Ed. Martin Edwards

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I always turn to mysteries when I want a quick, light read. In this vein, I picked up Murder by the Book: Mysteries for Bibliophiles, edited by Martin Edwards. Mr. Edwards has put together a rather dull group of stories. The collection starts out with an odd, brief story about a writer killed on a train by a stranger. The murder takes place immediately, with little background, and then we are quickly thrown into the investigation. In lightening time, an obvious killer is revealed and […]

The Time When the Book Grew On Me

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

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I initially didn’t care for Adam Silvera’s They Both Die at the End. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. The premise was intriguing: two teenagers are told by a service called Death-Cast that they will die in the next twenty four hours. It is 2017 and Death-Cast is now an inevitable part of people’s lives. Everyone is given a call when the time comes and told the end is nigh. It wasn’t the main characters that bothered me, really. Mateo and Rufus […]

An Entertaining History of the Plague

The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death by John Kelly

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The title of John Kelly’s The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death does not suggest an entertaining read, and of course in the particulars of the plague in 14th century Europe there is plenty of somber (and gross) information. But Kelly’s writing style is crisp, fast-moving, and yes, entertaining. When I told my dad the same about the book, I could practically see his eyes roll out of his head over email. But it’s true I tell you! The Great Mortality focuses […]

“A beautiful man with too much heart for the raw deal he got”

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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I noticed Caesar’s Wife’s review of Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, but as I was finishing up the book myself, I held back reading the review. Now that I’ve finished this wondrous book, I can say Caesar’s Wife has it all exactly right. It’s a much better job than I can do here, having just finished the book a few minutes ago, brought to tears. Demon Copperhead is about a young boy born in the rural south, with little to his name but a mother who […]



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