Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About reginadelmar

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Inspired to climb back into CBR after a few year hiatus. Promise to quit any book that doesn't hold my attention after the first 50 pages. Life is too short. she/her

reginadelmar's Reviews:

Cheetos, Yes or No?

Ingredients, The Strange Chemistry of What We put in Us and on US by George Zaidan

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George Zaidan is a chemist, not a nutritionist. Faced with so many contradictory claims about foods and cosmetics, he brings his scientific experience to explore what is good or bad for us. If you’re looking for answers that confirm your beliefs: “Cheetos are poison” or “Cheetos are harmless” this is not your book. Rather this is a light science book that tries to be funny with lots of young boy humor (he likes to say “shit” a lot) that sets out to help the reader […]

The Genealogy of Southern Cooking

The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty

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This is a book that showcases my shortcomings as a reviewer. I really enjoyed listening to this book, but am struggling to write about it. It is a memoir, a history of southern cuisine and a book on genealogy. Twitty reads the book himself which works well because the book is a very personal journey. He describes himself as an “obsessive cook with compulsive genealogist tendencies who can point to a map of Africa, Europe, North America, and with it, the South, and guide you […]

“Stranger, whoever you are, open this to learn what will amaze you.”

CLOUD CUCKOO LAND by ANTHONY DOERR

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The book begins: “Stranger, whoever you are, open this to learn what will amaze you.” Consider me amazed. The review excerpts in the front of the book gush with praise: “sings with beauty,” “sweeping and atmospheric,” “beautiful and enthralling. . . “ Yep. Anthony Doerr has said Cloud Cuckoo Land is a paean to books, but it is also a paean to great stories passed on through generations. Parts of the narrative may get lost, or changed by the teller, but a good story remains. […]

No Code Breaking Necessary to Enjoy this One

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn

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This historical fiction is about women code breakers at Bletchley Park (Officially the Government Code and Cypher School) during WWII. The three main characters, Mab, Osla and Beth are thrown together through Mab and Isla’s arrival at Bletchley Park. Mab is from Shoreditch. She is unabashedly clawing her way out of poverty and aiming toward stability and a better life by marrying up (so to speak). Osla is a socialite, of Canadian birth but English at heart. She has stayed in London to help with […]

A Picture Worth an Entire Book

A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline

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  “Over the years, certain stories in the history of a family take hold. They’re passed from generation to generation, gaining substance and meaning along the way. You have to learn to sift through them, separating fact from conjecture, the likely from the implausible. Here is what I know: Sometimes the least believable stories are the true ones.” With these words Christina Olson introduces herself in A Piece of the World. It is a historical fiction, which plausibly imagines the story of Christina Olson, the […]

Loss does not go away by ignoring it

The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing by Mira Jacob

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My book group chose this book for January. The group tends to choose lighter reads for our first books of the year. Sleepwalker’s Guide fit the bill. Although it clocks in at almost 500 page it flowed quickly and was an easy read. Amina is a photographer living in Seattle when her mother. Kamala, calls from Albuquerque to tell her that her father has been speaking with dead relatives. Her father, Thomas, is a brain surgeon. Amina thinks her mother might be exaggerating about her […]



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