Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“the same thing that we’re always seeking when we travel: to get outside of ourselves and imagine new possibilities”

The Best American Travel Writing 2020 by Jason Wilson (editor)

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One of this year’s Read Harder tasks was to read a “Best _ Writing of the year” book for a topic and year of your choice. I had a couple ideas and went perusing through my library catalog to see what I could come up with. And then I saw The Best American Travel Writing 2020 edited by Jason Wilson and the absurdity of these pandemic years meant that this one won out. Consider me intrigued to know what won out in a year that […]

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”

No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work by Mollie West Duffy and Liz Fosslien

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Cannonball Read Bingo: Font This year I started a new job and it was a huuuuge life shift: new industry (from non-profit higher education to for-profit tech corporation) new physical environment (hybrid to remote only) new role (administrator to enabler). (Yes, enabler is a real job title. Who knew?!). As with all things, I approached it with a thirst for resources that would equip me with the tools to be successful and help me find my way. Early on in a “getting to know you” […]

“My boy was a montage”

The Summer I Turned Pretty (2009) by Jenny Han

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This is for the Adapt/Camel cbr14bingo square; the book and its sequels have been adapted into a series on Amazon Prime, and narrator Isabel ‘Belly’ Conklin has to adapt to her changing body and growing up and the things and people she’s taken for granted changing around her. “My boy was a montage / A slow-motion, love potion/ jumping off things in the ocean / I broke his heart cause he was nice”, sings Taylor Swift on ‘Midnight Rain’, the sixth track of her new album. […]

Romp Through Ancient History

Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs by Barbara Mertz

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Barbara Mertz was an Egyptologist and author; in addition to this non-fiction entry she has a mystery series under the pen name Elizabeth Peters, featuring an intrepid female Egyptologist crime solver. Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphics is a quick historical romp through ancient Egypt, beginning at the beginning (the first pharaoh, Narmer, he of the stone palette trumpeting the unification of upper and lower Egypt that is taken as the usual start of ancient Egyptian history), through to Egypt becoming a vassal Roman state (fall of […]

Everybody wants to rule the world

When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt by Kara Cooney

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Kara Cooney is an Egyptologist and National Geographic explorer with an interest in women’s roles in ancient Egypt. This book is a taster tour of the rise and fall of 6 of Egypt’s female rulers, the most famous of which are Cleopatra, Hatshepsut and Nefertiti. Before I read this I was passingly familiar with these three but had never heard of the others she features (Merneith, Neferusobek and Tawosret). The timelines covered are broad- Merneith was the first of the six and she ruled in […]

My friend wrote a book and it’s really good! Why did it take me so long to read it?

Hot Rabbi by Aviva Blakeman

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CBR14 Bingo: Hot (hot features in the title, and a lot of the contents are also decidedly spicy) Official book description: For fifteen years, Shoshana Goldman has avoided her childhood synagogue. Her successful custom-furniture store keeps her busy enough, and the synagogue brings bad memories not peace. It will take nothing short of a minor miracle to change her mind. Intrigued by her friends’ convictions that the new “hot Rabbi” is that minor miracle, Shoshana agrees to attend a service. It’s only one service, right? […]



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