Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About kniki

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'Once a reader, always a reader' Hi! I'm from Australia!

kniki's Reviews:

Sorting the science from the fiction

So you think you know What's Good For You? by Dr Norman Swan

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Dr Norman Swan still has a lovely Glaswegian accent even though he’s lived in Australia for decades and I loved hearing his voice in my mind the whole time I was reading this book. Which didn’t turn out to be very long actually, as I finished it over a couple of days. Covering topics from nutrition and exercise to mental health and use of electronic devices, So you think you know What’s Good For You? is Dr Swan’s attempt to give people the knowledge they […]

Scarier than a really scary thing.

The Twelve by Justin Cronin

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Following on from The Passage, this is the second book in Justin Cronin’s epic trilogy. It starts nearer to Year Zero, when the human population is decimated by the failed-science-experiment-creatures-that-turn-into-vampires-but-I’m-not-sure-if-we-are-really-supposed-to-call-them-that. We are reacquainted with familiar characters, and get very quickly introduced to a whole bunch more. Honestly, it’s a bit hard to keep up at the beginning but there’s no need to stress too much – mostly they just seem to be there to give us some knowledge about the ancestry of those we came […]

Yeh it’s pretty scary.

The Passage by Justin Cronin

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I did it – I read another fiction book! Thanks to Caesar’s Wife for continuing to inspire my reading list. Not long after turning the first few pages of The Passage I felt a bit like I’d started a Stephen King book – that’s the closest genre I can think of that relates to this novel. This book, the first in a trilogy, starts in roughly present day USA when the government is rounding up death row inmates to act as lab rats. The experiment […]

(Not) pleased to meat you.

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

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First of all, I’m not even sure which category this goes in. Science Fiction? Short stories? Speculative Fiction? Cooking/Food? Horror? Oh, the horror! I’ll just settle on fiction. This book ponders what might happen if all the animals in the world became inedible due to, say, a nasty virus. Surely, you think to yourself, we would all just become vegetarians and learn to love the lentil! I guess if you took any hints from the title of the book (and this review), you’ve figured it […]

Why free money for everyone is a good idea

Utopia For Realists And How We Can Get There by Rutger Bregman

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As promised in my previous review this book was next on my list after reading Bregman’s other book, Humankind. Utopia for Realists puts forward the idea of a universal basic income, for everyone. Yes, free money. Yes, everyone. It sounds outlandish but did you know that it’s already been successfully trialed in Canada? And that it was very nearly public policy in the USA? This is not just a thought experiment set in fantasy land. It is backed up by logical arguments, research, and real […]

You are kinder than you think.

Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman

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Survival of the fittest. Every man for himself. There’s just no good in this world anymore. All those maxims are mistaken, according to Rutger Bregman, a young Dutch author who theorises in this, his second book, that humans are actually kinder than we think we are. And if we can agree to think so, we can change our future for the better. Readers of Yuval Noah Harari will recognise certain themes and retellings of history, for example in the chapter titled ‘The Curse of Civilisation’ […]



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