Reading the late Paul Kalanithi’s spectacular memoir When Breath Becomes Air, a meditation about love, literature and science in the face of a terminal cancer diagnosis was a strange experience “The good news is that I’ve already outlived two Brontes, Keats and Stephen Crane,” Kalanithi wrote to a friend. “The bad news is that I haven’t written anything.” He was trying to be funny, using the kind of dark humor you get from people facing the unfaceable. But it also revealed Kalanithi’s tremendous ambition. He […]
Just the Right Combination of Humor, Insight, and Death.
Ah, here we go. I tore through this book over two mornings ingesting every detail Ms. Doughty had to offer about her life and what her time working in crematories and mortuaries has taught her. Perhaps it was a kinship I felt with a similar academic mind craving information. Perhaps it was my previously mentioned interest in forensics, death, and disaster. But whatever it was, this book simply worked for me in a way that my previous read did not. Perhaps the best way to […]
Masters of Sex, but funnier
My weakness as far as Cannonball goes is I read much faster or more often than I sit down to write up reviews of said reads. For my next review, of Mary Roach’s Bonk, I will have to think back to January to recall my sentiments. I should really review my books when I finish them, then I wouldn’t have this problem. Mary Roach is a delightful science writer whose books have covered topics from death to digestion and a lot in between. Bonk: The […]
I’d go the whole wide world just to find her
This is a fantastic book. I know, I’m late to the game on this one, and I’m not sure why it took me so long to get to it. The premise bummed me out, a little. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is three stories. First, it’s the life story of Henrietta Lacks, a woman who died of cancer at age 31 and whose cells were cultured for use in tissue research. Next, it’s the story of what happened to those cells, whose remarkable ability […]
Basically Common Sense
I’ve written on a few different health books during the Cannonball Read, and most of them are focused on what Matt Fitzgerald would call “Diet Cults.” It sounds more insulting than I think it actually is; the premise of the books is that many folks latch onto a way of eating that doesn’t just work for them, but that they insist is the only healthy way to eat. Think Paleo, or vegetarian, or Atkins. I know I’ve fallen into more than one of these ways […]
The Breaking Pointe: How It Can All Fall Apart
Summary: Theo Cartwright is an amazing dancer, and she has secrets. When her childhood best friend is found after being abducted for four years, she doesn’t know if she should tell. One of her secrets involves her ex-boyfriend, and that’s who they think kidnapped Donovan. Her other secret is that she has a crush on Hosea Roth, but he already has a girlfriend. While trying to wade through the guilt of Donovan’s capture, and trying to keep the semblance of a normal life, Theo forgets […]
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