Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Reviews 1 & 2

A Hen for Izzy Pippik by Aubrey Davis and Marie Lafrance

Yasmeen Lari, Green Architect : The True Story of Pakistan's First Woman Architect by Marzieh Abbas and Hoda Hadadi

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I decided to start my 2025 reading with a few books I found in 2024. And as I like easing into the new year, I decided to start with a picture book or two. Always a favorite genre of mine, as they can be both fun and informative. And the below titles are fun and especially informative with the second. I read both via an online reader copy but they are currently available.  Book One: A Hen for Izzy Pippik by Aubrey Davis and illustrated […]

The Message

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

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My first book of 2025 (I actually began reading it on 12/30/24) and it Is a doozy. Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Message is primarily interested in the ways that language shapes power and resistance. The introductory section, “Journalism Is Not a Luxury,” addresses just that: the essential role in language and journalism, recording history, in fighting injustice. Coates addresses an unnamed “you” in this section, but this part seems to serve as a thesis statement about writing: “You cannot act upon what you cannot see. And […]

last two! an opioid double header

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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Empire of Pain: The Secret of the Sackler Dynasty This is a great (read: infuriating) book, but for someone like me who works in the pharma industry and had a first hand seat to the fall of Mallinckrodt (a similar, less culpable just because of scale player in the opioid crisis) I wasn’t as shocked as some of my friends were by the actions of Purdue through the middle of this book. Besides, things keep coming out about how terrible all of these actors are, […]

bit of an omnibus for the year end

Buried Deep and Other Stories by Naomi Novik

Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery

Anne of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close by Aminatou Sow, Ann Friedman

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Buried Deep and Other Stories (⭐⭐⭐⭐ but for the ones I read) Did I get this only to re-visit the world of Temeraire? You bet! I felt, I think like many people, that Novik got a bit fed up of her Dragon + Napoleonic Wars world by the end, with the whimsy and joy taken over by staid descriptions of military marches and food depots. This was a way to return to the original joy, especially since one of the retellings was of Pride and […]

Not great for class, but good to read

Messy Roots by Laura Gao

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“Every time I struggled to fit into the world around me, I thought if I flew far away enough, like Chang’e, the perfect home would magically appear. But when your roots are tangled up across so many different places, that perfect world may not exist.” My school generally tries to have us read books in English class that are more accessible to people and that will make people more likely to actually read and enjoy, hence them having us read Messy Roots as part of […]

Honestly just interesting

The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr

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“The Net’s interactivity gives us powerful new tools for finding information, expressing ourselves, and conversing with others. It also turns us into lab rats constantly pressing levers to get tiny pellets of social or intellectual nourishment.” This book came strongly recommended, and it seemed interesting enough so I decided to pick it up and give it a go. The Shallows is a nonfiction book about the effects of the Internet, specifically why people have shortened attention spans. Not only does it explore and discuss the […]



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