Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Secret to Chess is the Secret to Life

All the Wrong Moves: A Memoir About Chess, Love, and Ruining Everything by Sasha Chapin

by Leave a Comment

Learning to play chess was one of my 2020 new year’s resolutions. It turned out to be a pretty good one since we’re largely home bound. Lately, everyone is talking about Netflix’ The Queen’s Gambit, as well, so chess is enjoying a bit of spotlight it hasn’t been in for some time. However, as Sasha Chapin details in All the Wrong Moves, for a certain type of person chess is always in the spotlight. The game becomes an obsession. It’s a niche world and perfect […]

Allie’s not dead! She’s back and she gave us this wonderful book and she’s ok (sort of)

Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh

by 2 Comments

Back in 2013, Allie Brosh published Hyperbole and a Half named after the blog she kept (and has finally updated with a new post!). I pre-ordered the last book and bought it as a Christmas present for pretty much every single person my husband and I knew that year (now our own copy seems to have mysteriously gone missing – which distresses me). Allie’s blog (we are clearly on first-name basis, and would be great friends if we ever met) and her book meant a lot to me, […]

“We gotta get out while we’re young, ’cause tramps like us, baby, we were born to run” (double Bingo)

Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen

by Leave a Comment

#CBR12 Bingo: Music   Official book description: In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl’s halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it. That’s how this extraordinary autobiography began.   Over the past seven years, Bruce Springsteen has privately devoted himself to writing the story of his life, bringing to these pages the same honesty, humor, and originality found in his songs.   He describes growing up Catholic in Freehold, New Jersey, amid […]

A country without a language is a country without a soul

The Speckled People: A Memoir of a Half-Irish Childhood by Hugo Hamilton

by Leave a Comment

The speckled people is a memoir of a childhood in Ireland in the 1950’s, growing up between languages. Hugo’s mother is a german emigrant and his father is an Irish nationalist determined that his children will revive the Irish language. Hugo himself is just a boy who wants to fit in with the other kids – who all speak English. The book is written in a soft language, floating in and out of the memories of a young boy. His father is a brutal tyrant […]

Be the Human Magnet you wish to see in the world

Crash Test Girl: An Unlikely Experiment in Using the Scientific Method to Answer Life's Toughest Questions by Kari Byron

by Leave a Comment

If you get to know [people] a little better and work up a degree of human warmth toward them, you can judge them without the influence and control of unseen forces. — Kindle location 1081  

“I don’t really have any dreams beyond comfortable pants and unlimited sparkling water” (Bingo)

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby

by Leave a Comment

#CBR11 Bingo: The Collection (Could also work for True Story, Cannonballer Says, Own Voices and Rainbow Flag) Official book description: Sometimes you just have to laugh, even when life is a dumpster fire. With We Are Never Meeting in Real Life., “bitches gotta eat” blogger and comedian Samantha Irby turns the serio-comic essay into an art form. Whether talking about how her difficult childhood has led to a problem in making “adult” budgets, explaining why she should be the new Bachelorette–she’s “35-ish, but could easily […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo