Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Make no mistake. This is a planet of microbes. We are here at their pleasure. They don’t need us at all.”

The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson

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This was an absolutely fascinating read, chock-full of interesting information told in a warm and funny way. Bill Bryson comes off as someone who is genuinely excited to teach this material, which is my favorite kind of person to learn from. Also, I listened to the last hour or so of the audiobook while running a marathon on Sunday, and I’ll tell you, there is no greater motivation to keep yourself moving than listening to all the different ways your body is slowly dying! “It’s […]

Before a governor of South Carolina gave “Hiking the Appalachian Trail” new meaning

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson

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Would have been my True Story bingo square if I’d gotten my act together to write this up Thursday night while distributing candy! It’s hard to say whether Mark Sanford did a disservice to the adventurous hikers braving the 2,200-mile trail that runs from Georgia to Maine or whether, perhaps, he inspired a few people to give it a go by raising awareness. At any rate, this book has nothing to do with political scandals, extramarital affairs, or clandestine trips to Argentina, so if that’s […]

He was a superenthusiast for bleeding.

The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson

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An entirely unsurprising book, this pop science book is to the human body what Bill Bryson’s earlier book A Short History of Nearly Everything is to scientific discovery. Thoroughly researched, charmingly narrated (both in terms of the prose style and sense of levity the book is written in but also in terms of the audiobook edition that Bryson himself narrates in his confusing and fetching mixed accent). So the book works it’s way through the various parts of the human body discussing form, function, analogies to […]

…using our legs to proceed across the landscape.

A Walk In The Woods by Bill Bryson

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CBR11 BINGO: Travel (BINGO! Pajiba square to Science square) This is one of those books that I heard about forever ago and passed by constantly on bookshelves. Novels with nature as a character are kind of my thing but non-fiction generally is not. Once again, Cannonball Read BINGO has pushed me to read something I most likely would have never gotten around to. (I’m just 3 squares from a black out, people. THREE and I will see it to fruition!) A quick Google search of “best travel books” landed […]

For my first read of 2019, I decide to learn EVERYTHING

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

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Although probably best known for travel writing, Bill Bryson has written a number of science-based nonfiction books, and in 2003 he published a book that pondered the scientific questions and attempted to answer, well, nearly everything. The jump from travel writing to his Short History of Nearly Everything is not such a tremendous leap, however, if you think about it like a travelogue, starting with the beginning of the solar system and ending with life as we know it. In the introduction, Bryson describes how […]

Don’t let the cover mislead you. There are no grizzlies on the Appalachian Trail.

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I added this book to my TBR the very first day I joined Goodreads in July 2008, so yes I do feel accomplished for finally having read it. And it was a good time! I was a bit worried based on a few reviews I’d read ahead of time that it would be dated, and it was a tiny bit (mostly in some jokes Bryson makes that read a little fatphobic to my 2018 eyes and ears, but would have been absolutely bog standard in […]



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