Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— It gives a lovely light!

Rapture and Melancholy: The Diaries of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Daniel Mark Epstein (Editor)

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Starting in 1907 as a teenager, Edna St Vincent Millay began documenting her life in a series of diaries, ending in 1949. These diaries chart her early hopes and dreams, her rise to fame as one of the most prominent American contemporary poets, her farm life with her husband Eugen, and her struggles with alcohol and morphine addiction. I am not a reader of poetry – it simply doesn’t appeal to me terribly. Consequently my knowledge of all but the most well-known poets is a […]

“I still knew I was going to keep my lion and train him.”

Here, Keller -- Train This by George Keller

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Here Keller — Train This is about the life of George Keller, who yearned his whole life to become a lion/big cat trainer at the circus, but ended up being an art professor at State College. One day, his friend ships him a mountain lion in a crate with a sign on it saying “HERE KELLER — Train This.” His friend does this as part joke and part challenge, as everyone knows how much he loves training animals. He takes it home and decides to actually […]

A Brief But Fascinating Circus Autobiography

Last of the Forty-Horse Drivers by Jake Posey

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This brief but information-packed autobiography details the life of Jake Posey, who drove forty-horse teams for several circuses during the late 1800s and early 1900s. He traveled with Barnum & Bailey, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, and other important but now not generally known circuses like the Sparks Circus. I really enjoyed this book, as I am very into circuses and circus history. If you don’t have a general knowledge of the history of the circus, this might not be the book for you, as […]

A great man, a great book (??), but not a book for me.

Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela by Nelson Mandela

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Oh, this rating makes me feel bad. Three stars means ‘I liked it!’ I just don’t think autobiographies are for me. Nelson Mandela was a great man, and I’m glad I know more about him, but this was not super engaging for me, even in audiobook. The audiobook, by the way, is a good one. The narrator, Michael Boatman, is from South Africa, so he can do all the clicks and glottal stops that Mandela’s native tongue of Xhosa requires. His voice is soothing and […]

TFW The Trenches of WWI Beat Life at Oxford, Any Day

Good-Bye to All That by Robert Graves

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Bingo Square Shelfie Good-Bye to All That is rather a “Boy’s Own” version of, Robert Graves’ (the Irish-British poet) account of his public school and war years – WWI, that is.  Schooling started at Charterhouse School and continued at Oxford, and Graves did not enjoy any bit of it.  As soon as the War started, Graves signed up, as an officer, and never looked back.  War, it turned out, was far more his element. Graves was one of the several British poets involved in WWI, […]

“I’m not sure what the difference is between sleeping and time travel”

Broken (in the best possible way) by Jenny Lawson

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4.5 stars CBR13 Bingo: Rep (features honest and sometimes graphic descriptions of life with a variety of mental and chronic illnesses) It’s no secret that Jenny Lawson, known online and to her followers as The Bloggess, suffers from a large number of ailments, both physical and mental. She has dealt with various kinds of chronic illness throughout her life and manages to be mostly very light-hearted and humourous about it. I chose to get this book in audio, because Jenny Lawson narrates her own books, […]



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