Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Art Crime Makes a Reappearance

Stealing the Show: A History of Art and Crime in Six Thefts by John Barelli

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May is Preservation Month, and in honor of that there is a push in the museum community to work on safety and preservation policies and procedures that all too often get pushed to the bottom of the to do list. Disaster and emergency preparedness are parts of my job that I enjoy and this year’s May focus for me was theft reporting procedures, which made Stealing the Show timely reading. But I wanted the book that this one’s subtitle describes and this isn’t it. (I’m […]

“It’s all a decision. You just decide, and then you do something. You don’t have to know everything, but you do have to begin.”

Managing Expectations: a Memoir in Essays by Minnie Driver

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Unbeknownst to me, I’ve been following along with Minnie Driver’s acting career in real time since her debut in Circle of Friends. Several of her performances have stood out to me over the years and as I have a fondness for memoirs, picking hers up seemed inevitable and going the author read audio route all the better. For almost a week Driver’s voice accompanied me on my various drives (and notably in and out of Philly for work in a day) and it was truly […]

Helped define what the Holocaust feels like to most who didn’t go through it

Night by Elie Wiesel

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I’m not really sure how to review Night by Elie Wiesel. It’s a seminal fictionalized Holocaust memoir that’s been taught for decades in schools across the world. Along with Schindler’s List, it’s probably defined how I’ve thought of the Holocaust for most of my life. Reading it again didn’t really bring with it any new information or perspective – though it lands different reading it as a father compared to reading it as a teenager, like I did the first time. For something to indelible, […]

Resilient A.F.

No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality by Michael J. Fox

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Best for: People interested in Michael J. Fox, or how anyone (with resources) handles chronic illness. In a nutshell: Michael J. Fox shares some of the challenges he has recently faced over the last decade or so. Worth quoting: N/A (Audio book) Why I chose it: My partner and I watched ‘Still,’ the documentary on AppleTV+ that just come out about Michael J. Fox. It was a well done, unique documentary, and it made me interested in learning more about the actor. What it left […]

More than a story about chimps

The Chimpanzee Whisperer by Stany Nyandwi with David Blissett

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I found The Chimpanzee Whisperer: A Life of Love and Loss, Compassion and Conservation (2022) by Stany Nyandwi with David Blissett when I was browsing available audiobooks at my library to listen to on my commute. I was very lucky to stumble on a book that was perfect for me. I’m a huge admirer of Jane Goodall, and I’ve read at least one long biography of her life. I’m very familiar with her early research on chimpanzees in Tanzania, her efforts to improve the lives of chimps […]

“Our vast universe provides us with enough profound and beautiful truths to live a spiritually fulfilling life.”

For Small Creatures Such as We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World by Sasha Sagan

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I first heard of For Small Creatures Such as We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World by Sasha Sagan from a fellow Cannonballer’s review. I was immediately intrigued by the idea of finding ways to create ritual and deeper meaning in our daily lives from a non-religious perspective.  The book is organized roughly around seasons, both of the natural world and seasons of life (birth, spring, holidays, etc.). In each chapter, Sagan discusses different cultural and/or religious rites connected to the event being […]



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