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:

Do You Hear What I Hear? and if Not, So?

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

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When does a book become real? And for that matter, what is real? These questions run through Ruth Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness as the main character, Benny, fourteen years old, struggles with the death of his father, adolescence and the voices of inanimate objects that he cannot shut out. The story is told by Benny, and also a book. The book not only narrates Benny’s story, but talks with Benny directly, or talks directly to the reader pontificating on books, the art […]

Trees are the Best

The Overstory by Richard Powers

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Richard Power’s novel The Overstory is organized as a tree: roots, trunk, crown and seeds. The roots are eight individual short stories of immigrants coming to this continent, families planting trees, a man’s life saved by a tree, a boy falling out of a tree. The stories are unconnected and even the trees don’t hint at how they may or may not be drawn together.  For this reason, the trunk of the story is a bit difficult to read initially because five of the characters […]

Rich People Act like Jerks Volumes 2 and 3

China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan

Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan

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I only have myself to blame for reading these books, nor did I stop after one, I finished them both. It was like stuffing yourself with cotton candy, insubstantial, cloying and regret thereafter. I chose these books because I had many hours of air travel last week and remembered that the first of the trilogy was kind of fun (Crazy Rich Asians) as was the movie. These books served their purpose in that they lasted the length of the flights, kept me mildly amused, and […]

Your Gut is a Wonderland

Gut: The Inside Story of Our Most Underated Organ by Giulia Enders

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Gut  was originally published in  Germany  and then translated a few  years   later.  It does lose a little in translation (the humor works better in German). Overall this is a good introduction to what’s going on from the spoon all the way to the bowl, so to speak. At the time Ender’s wrote this book she was a medical student. As a teenager she’d had health issues that were difficult to diagnose, which spurred her interest in the gut. Since this book was published there […]

Inspiring Powerful Women make a Great Read!

The National Team: The Inside Story of the Women Who Changed Soccer by Caitlin Murray

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As recently as 2018 Madeleine Albright said “You [women] are going to have to work twice as hard. It’s just a simple truth. . . there’s plenty of room for mediocre men, there is no room for mediocre women.” Fortunately the US National Women’s Soccer team has been full of extraordinary women since 1985, with each generation of  players building on the hard work and success of their predecessors. Caitlin Murray recounts the history of women’s soccer in the US through  many of the player’s […]

3:2:1 Cooking and Baking is all about the Ratios

Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman

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Out of the blocks I have a confession: a friend gave me this book because I love to bake. I read recipes for fun, which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I found Ratio to be a great book for bakers and perhaps to a lesser degree, cooks. The ratios for different doughs: bread, biscuits, pie crust, pasta follow pretty strict formulas of flour, water and fat. Baking is often more chemistry experiment than free flowing expression of one’s imagination. Too much fat, flour or sugar […]



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