Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

We All Deserve to Be Happy

Happy Fat: Taking Up Space in a World That Wants to Shrink You by Sophie Hagen

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I found the incredibly funny Sophie Hagen through her podcasts, Made of Human and Secret Dinosaur Cult. She is a lovely Danish standup comedian that now lives in London and she is very, very funny. She is also fat, and has been for most of her life. As most of us who are on the heavier side probably know, this means she has had certain experiences in life that are less than ideal. She decided it was time to really look into the ideas that […]

Surgery Before Anesthesia and Antiseptics

The Butchering Art by Lindsey Fitzharris

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Bingo 17 (Science!) The Butchering Art is part biography and part history of medicine, but mostly medicine. Do not read this is you are squeamish about some fairly graphic descriptions of surgery before things like antiseptics and anesthesia. The focus of the book is one the career of a Quaker named Joseph Lister in Victorian England; if his last name sounds vaguely familiar it should, and I’m surprised it doesn’t get more attention or pointed out sooner than it actually does. I’m also slightly ashamed […]

Nonfiction reviews for CBR Bingo

The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Cara Robertson

Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How to Love by Thomas Maier

The Amnityville Horror by Jay Anson

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So part of my “catch up while husband is overseas” plan involved writing 5 reviews per day but since that took roughly 100 years last night I decided to shoot for a more reasonable three. I am also going to try and find common threads between my reviews so it makes a bit more sense. All of the below reviews are “true stories” but I only needed one to check off the True Story Bingo square- CBR Bingo: True Story The Trial of Lizzie Borden, […]

“When you can eat, eat. When you can sleep, sleep. When you can fuck, fuck. But do not fuck with the pancreas.”

The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician's First Year by Matt McCarthy

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No joke, I just heard that line on Grey’s Anatomy (Bailey skipped the f-bomb though). Apparently we REALLY need to respect the pancreas. The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly is Dr. Matt McCarthy’s mostly funny but occasionally heart-breaking memoir of his first year as an intern. He takes us through rounds, nights on call, patients he couldn’t help and the patients he could. We meet the doctors who train him (or berate him), his fellow interns, and the nurses who keep it all running. […]

Jen Gunter Has a Vagenda

The Vagina Bible: The Vulva and the Vagina: Separating the Myth from the Medicine by Jennifer Gunter

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When I saw The Vagina Bible: The Vulva and the Vagina: Separating the Myth from the Medicine by Dr. Jennifer Gunter offered on NetGalley, I jumped all over it. This is an honest review in exchange for an ARC. The book is available August 27. You should buy it or ask your library to buy many copies. Dr. Jen Gunter is one of my favorite Twitter follows. She is smart, funny, and beacon of light in dark times. The Vagina Bible is exactly what I […]

CBR11Bingo: SCIENCE!

The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee

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Siddhartha Mukherjee is a physician, biologist, and oncologist, and this is a book all about genes — a massive and complicated area of science (science!) that he breaks down wonderfully for his readers. The audio book was 20 hours long. It took me an entire road trip to get through. I loved it. The subtitle of The Gene is An Intimate History, and intimate is right. This book is so incredibly detailed — he examines every single aspect of genes: how they affect our personalities, […]



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