Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I suspect a complete lack of physical affection has led the British monarchy to where it is today.

Spare by Prince Harry

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CBR15 Bingo: Politics – The internal politicking of the British royal family is intriguing and horrifying. While not a British royal super fan, I’ve always been interested in them.  Queen Elizabeth’s corgis were part of the reason I got a corgi of my own. I thought I knew the broad strokes of Harry’s early life; trouble in schools, some drugs, partying, two stints in the military, and then he seemed to come into his own as an adult.  In recent years, I’ve followed the royals […]

An aptly named memoir

Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton & Me by Bernie Taupin

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Cbr15bingo on the air I like Elton John’s music. I know people who are super fans, and I am not one of those, but growing up in the 1970s with older siblings, I heard his music all the time on the radio or on our stereo at home. Between my sibs and me, we probably had most of his albums from the 1970s, and then with the ’80s and MTV, you couldn’t miss his videos. Recently, I heard part of Marc Maron’s interview with Bernie […]

The Road to Hell

Hitler: 1889-1936, Hubris by Ian Kershaw

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Read this as part of CBR15Bingo: Europe. Adolf Hitler’s entire life story takes place in Europe and he, more than any one person, instigated a world war that began in Europe. Many times, Europe is considered a fancy, civilized place and I think we need to own how historically, western Europe has given the world a horrifying amount of barbarism between colonization, the transatlantic slave trade, and the Holocaust.  While far from an expert on Nazi Germany, I perhaps know more about it than the typical […]

A little plane at night in a storm

Into the Abyss by Carol Shaben

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I originally picked up Into the Abyss (2014) by Carol Shaben because I was looking for a book to fill the “In the Wild” bingo square. The blurb said Into the Abyss was the true story of a plane that crashed in the Canadian wilderness. That sounded like in the wild to me. However, once I read the book, it didn’t feel right. The survivors only spend one night in the wilderness and their biggest challenges are surviving their injuries and not freezing to death. So, I decided to […]

A true story of dissociative identity disorder and being transgender

The Third Person by Emma Grove

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I picked up The Third Person (2022) by Emma Grove specifically for Cannonball Bingo. I wanted another graphic novel to read, so I looked at NPR’s Best Books of 2022 and decided that Grove’s memoir looked interesting. Fortunately, it was available at my library, and I didn’t have to wait long. When The Third Person arrived, I was surprised that it was a huge tome of over 900 pages. The majority of the story is a conversation between Emma and her therapist, Toby. Emma wants and needs the therapist’s okay to […]

Flight is but momentary escape from the eternal custody of earth.

West with the Night by Beryl Markham

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CBR15 BINGO (Take to the Skies square: memoir written by the first person to fly nonstop from Europe to North America) BINGO! (Take to the Skies to Adulthood) For last year’s CBR Bingo, I read Circling the Sun by Paula McClain and loved it. I fell hard for the problematic but endlessly fascinating shenanigans of mostly swanky Europeans living, farming and cocktailing their way across East Africa. McClain’s novel centered on Beryl Markham who was the most interesting of the bunch. Raised on her father’s farm, she grew up with […]



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