Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Barbara did whatever she set her mind to do

Because Barbara: Barbara Cooney Paints Her World by Sarah MacKenzie

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You might have read my review of Dear Duck, Please Come! by Sarah MacKenzie and Charles Santoso and learned that I was trying to read Because Barbara: Barbara Cooney Paints Her World by Sarah MacKenzie and illustrated by Eileen Ryan Ewen instead, but a mix up with the online link brought me to the duck book. It was a nice surprise, but I still wanted to read about Cooney and was eventually able to locate another online link to the book. Therefore,  I was able […]

It’s not a walk in the woods

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson

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I’ve already read A Walk in the Woods and The Body by Bill Bryson, and I found them both entertaining and informative. So, when I went looking for another audiobook for my commute, I decided to give At Home: A Short History of Private Life (2010) by Bryson a shot. Bill Bryson lives in an old parsonage in a rural part of England, and he uses this home as a framework to work through a lot of history that made his home a home. Although he goes into a number of […]

“We are all of us more complicated than the roles we are assigned in the stories other people tell”

Educated by Tara Westover

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CBR 16 Bingo – Dreams: Tara dreamed of an education, and then fulfilled those dreams. “Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind.” We selected this book one month last year for my book club, but I didn’t end up reading it then because I was insanely busy that month […]

Great for sports fans and non-sports-fans alike (bingo)

The Boys in the Boat: The True Story of an American Team's Epic Journey to Win Gold at the 1936 Olympics by Daniel James Brown, Gregory Mone (adaptor)

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CBR 16 Bingo – Rings: Olympics “He saw the power of trust, the strength of the affection that sometimes grew between a pair of young men. Or among a boatload of them striving honestly to do their best.” My family has a history of rowing. Both my parents participated in the sport, and now they indoctrinated me and my brother with it as well. Because of this, my interpretation of this book might be different than someone who read it without understanding the sport, since […]

Rage against the dying of the light

Men Have Called Her Crazy (2024) by Anna Marie Tendler

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Bingo square rage. I think this completes my bingo row, along with fanfic, fiasco, earth day, golden Content note for the book: suicidal ideation, eating disorders, self harm, mental health “Now I’m furious, so angry my whole body feels hot, and I can tell I’m about to cry.” (p. 211) I’m (still) a fan of Tendler’s ex-husband–and I love that this isn’t about him. Well, it’s about him in the sense that he’s the ‘unfaithful husband’ of the narrative, presumably, the shadow that lurks behind […]

Fine But Not What I Was Hoping For

Women Without Kids by Ruby Warrington

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Best for: People who would rather work through issues using a book than in therapy? In a nutshell: Childfree author Warrington explores the different ways that not having children influences the lives women lead. Worth quoting: “Is the meaning of life really only to create more life?” From responses to a survey the author conducted: “I saw how broken my mother was, and I didn’t agree with her assertion that her personal sacrifice should be seen as a gift/blessing to me. That rationale didn’t make […]



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