Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Where my Enneagram nerds at?

The Sacred Enneagram by Christopher Heuertz

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For those not familiar with the Enneagram, I don’t really want to take up a ton of space with that explanation here. Basically, it is an ancient system of categorizing folks into 9 types. It’s more than a personality test; it focuses on internal motivations, wounds, and passions. It recognizes that the ‘type’ that you are is really a self-preservation mechanism that you learned as a child in order to protect the real you. There is a TON of info out there about this, so […]

Academic Fiction at it’s Best but also Worst

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

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It’s probably been 15 years since I’ve read anything substantial by Umberto Eco. I’m pretty sure I was maybe a sophomore or junior in college the first time I read The Name of the Rose. Now, I find myself in the position of needing to reread it for a work-related event. In the intervening decade and a half, I’ve gotten a lot better at Latin, and I’ve also been exposed to a lot more primary source material concerning theology, philosophy, science, literature, and history of the […]

We three kings (not /those/ three kings)…

A Tale of Three Kings: A Study in Brokenness by Gene Edwards

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This one was for work reading….at first my post-Christmas brain went to the three kings from the East, but the book was definitely about a different set of three kings: namely Saul, David, and Absalom. It was a quick read and interesting, though I found  Edwards’ arguments a bit forced towards the end. It is a study of brokenness as the title states, but specifically about how that brokenness plays out in the leadership roles of the first three kings of Israel…and by extraction in […]

“You’ve got to pick up every stitch”

Practical Magic for Beginners by Brandy Williams

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I recently started getting into an actual magical practice. I’ve had an interest in it for years but never but never seriously practiced it. Since a lot of books on magic can be pretty esoteric, I wanted bare bones basic book to give me a general idea of where to start. Practical Magic for Beginners did a nice job of that. It begins with short exercises designed to improve focus and direct your energy works up to some basic rituals that you can personalize and […]

Mediocre Non-Fiction Primer on Religious Conspiracy Theories

Secrets of the Code: The Unauthorized Guide to the Mysteries Behind The DaVinci Code by Dan Burstein

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I have an almost flashbulb memory of reading The DaVinci Code– I was 20, backpacking Europe for six months and staying for a few days with my best friend at her live-in B&B job in London.  After Tube delays caused me to miss my discount early morning flight out to Berlin, I headed back into the city and spent the day reading Dan Brown’s thriller.  As a lapsed United Church churchgoer, I wasn’t heavily undone by any of the religious conspiracies in the novel, but […]

A glimpse into the mind of a 12th century religious thinker

Hildegard of Bingen: Mystical Writings by Hildegard of Bingen, Fiona Bowie (Editor), Oliver Davies (Editor)

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Every so often a book about faith sneaks into my reading. There was a time when I was much more involved in organized religion, but it has been a tough fit for me in the past decade or more. I have tended to hold my personal faith a little closer than that shared in a large gathering. The historian side of me is also always looking to learn more about the faith I was raised in and a couple of years ago when the ladies […]



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