Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“The best estimate of flu deaths in 1918–1919 is between 50 million and 100 million worldwide”

Very, Very, Very Dreadful: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918 by Albert Marrin

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Albert Marrin has apparently written quite a few history books, mostly on American wars. But I placed a hold on works about mankind’s relationship with rats and another about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire after finishing this interesting book about the 1918 Spanish Flu. The man definitely has some varied interests. “In the United States, influenza death rates were so high that the average life span fell by twelve years, from fifty-one in 1917 to thirty-nine in 1918. If you were a “doughboy”—slang for an American […]

Feminism in Text Book Form

Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Book Collective

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The last book I read from my list of 50 Books Every Woman Should Read Before She Turns 40 was Our Bodies, Ourselves by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective. Our Bodies, Ourselves first came about in the late 1960s. Since then numerous editions and expansions have been written, with the latest edition published in 2011. The latest version is an 825 text book on women’s health and sexuality in the United States. Because of the length and subject, I bought this book months ago and read it in small chunks […]

It Feels Good to Be Yourself: says it all

It Feels Good to Be Yourself by Theresa Thorn

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It Feels Good to Be Yourself: A Book about Gender Identity is coming in May 2019 and I can already see it on every banned and challenged list out there. This book is not going to change your feelings on the subject, but it might give you a new or expanded language to use. Also, due to the accessibility of the text to children, it helped explain a few terms I was still unsure of their meaning. Therefore, this introduction to this subject can span […]

Envision that Circumcision and Feel that Eel

Under the Knife by Arnold van der Laar

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I’ve always wanted to be a doctor. That didn’t pan out, and I’m fine with that, but the interest in all things medical has lingered. Because I was planning to read more non-fiction anyway, I picked up this book on a whim, and although I wasn’t disappointed, it lacks a certain degree of depth. More subcutaneous than intraosseal, if you please. Van de Laar – who is a surgeon himself – takes us through the history of medicine, and specifically surgery, but instead of telling […]

I guess Gaiman already took Trigger Warning as a title…

In Shock by Rana Awdish

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I want to start with the positives. I learned a lot from this book.  I work in health care and related to a lot of the author’s experiences (I went septic after a post partum kidney infection, so it was kind of a cold-water-to-the-face moment reading that 1/3 of patients with sepsis die, and mine was an antibiotic resistant strain. Now I know why the nurse I brought doughnuts for once I recovered looked like she’d seen a ghost when I walked in the door). […]

The Situation is a lot more nuanced than that…

The Mindfulness Solution for Intense Emotions: Take Control of Borderline Personality Disorder with DBT by Cedar R. Koons

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I went to a talk, not too long ago, with a philosopher who had written his thesis on body awareness. He wrote his entire thesis without any sort of movement and he was advised by the leading expert who also rarely moved or was aware of his body in any way. The philosopher has since rectified this and now he’s all about practicing what he preaches. This book is for people diagnosed with Borderline Personality disorder or people who suffer from emotional intensity “Emotional intensity […]



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