Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Pioneer Woman

Frontier Grit: The Unlikely True Stories of Daring Pioneer Women by Marianne Monson

The Paper Daughters of Chinatown by Heather B. Moore

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Frontier Grit – 3.5 stars In this book we meet twelve women who traversed the American frontier in search of their dreams, though what these dreams were and the paths they took to them vary extraordinarily. As a child I devoured Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books. Though I’ve have quite a lot of bubbles burst about her depiction of her childhood (check out Caroline Fraser’s Prairie Fires to learn more), my interest in those so-called pioneers who tried to ‘tame’ the Wild West still persists, […]

More like Ron Churn-ow

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I read Chernow’s biography of Hamilton last year because, well, I can’t see the musical.  Also, I majored in History as an undergrad and my favorite era is the American Revolution.   Hamilton, the biogrpaphy, was excellent.  It was the first major biography that read despite a good friend recommending Chernow a few years ago.  I enjoyed Hamilton enough that I added Grant to my queue as soon as it was added to my library and after eight months of waiting, I got my turn. […]

There May Be No Supernatural Shenanigans, but That Doesn’t Make the Real History Less Engrossing.

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A few weeks ago, something shocking occurred when I went to check my credits on Audible. Usually, their recommended section either accidentally recommends books I’ve already read, or throws me some kind of self-help book – which, honestly, they probably inflict these on everybody. But this time they got it right – they gave me a recommendation off their new release list that wasn’t something I was already familiar with. And it turned out to be really damned good! I wasn’t sure of how to […]

Audrey is Great. This Book? Not So Much. (CBR10Bingo)

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When we were voting for the AlabamaPink book club this book was my second choice (even though I don’t vote my first choice was Between the Bridge and the River and I’ll be talking about my feelings on that one in my next review) so choosing this for the Alabama Pink bingo square made perfect sense to me. I like biographies, Audrey Hepburn, and classic Hollywood – done and done. I am however left underwhelmed by the reading experience of this book. I think it […]

There Was No Way I Was Going to Enjoy This One

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Cardinal George Pell is probably the highest profile Catholic back home in Australia – he’s the former Archbishop of Melbourne; former Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney; and the current Vatican Prefect for the Secretariat of the Economy. (Think of him as the Pope’s treasurer.) He’s easily the highest ranking Prelate of the Catholic Church to originate from Australia. He is also the highest ranking Cleric of the Catholic Church to be facing sexual assault charges. Huh, who would’ve guessed it would be going in that direction? […]

An American Legend, Indeed

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CBR 10 Bingo Entry: The Book Was Better? I spent some time pondering what I’d like to read for the “Book Was Better” category for CBR  10 Bingo. With so many options, I was falling victim to decision paralysis, when a trip to my local library helped me solve the problem. While dropping off some books, I stopped into the Friends of the Library bookstore, not expecting to find anything. But then my eye was caught by a hardbound copy of Seabiscuit in excellent condition, […]



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