Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Not what Schrödinger had in mind, but I’ll take it

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

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Jason Dessen is a physics professor at a local college. He lives in Chicago with his wife Daniela and his son Charlie. Once upon a time, Jason was a promising young scientist, destined for greatness, who gave it all up when his girlfriend turned out to be pregnant. Jason’s life is not unpleasant, but it is dull and sedate and the what-ifs occasionally nag at the back of his head. But then, suddenly, Jason is abducted at gunpoint. His assailant stabs him with a syringe. […]

“It’s terrifying when you consider that every thought we have, every choice we could possibly make, branches off into a new world.”

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

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I had been telling people for years that I didn’t like this book. Recently when I asked a friend for a recommendation of something I could read when I ran, she suggested it and I again gave it a “meh, didn’t love it.” Imagine my surprise when I figured out I had not, in fact, read this book at all. (My sincerest apologies to Blake Crouch). I conflated this book (cover on the left) with Geek Love (cover on the right), about a family of […]

I’m gunna study the stars and there ain’t nuttin’ you can do about it!

Shining Star: Vera Rubin Discovers Dark Matter by Suzanne Slade

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What is dark matter? Well, if you are looking for an answer, you won’t exactly find it in Shining Star: Vera Rubin Discovers Dark Matter. Instead, in this picture book (due November 2023, and yes, I read it via an online reader copy) you will find the biography of Dr. Vera Rubin, a young girl who in the 1940’s said, “World. I’m going to study the stars!” And she did, all the while raising a family and facing discrimination. Her studies, ingenuity, tenacity, and a […]

Tacoma calls, it’s waiting there to get rid of us all, when the big one comes better hope the car don’t stall.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

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Weirdly, my cannonball thus far has been strongly apocalyptic, which has been… interesting in light of current events. You’d think that this would make me more anxious, but paradoxically I’m looking at the real world and thinking “eh, people are hoarding toilet paper, but every grocery store I’ve been to has been relatively full if you’re not hyper specific about what you want. No one is stealing out of each others carts or housejacking like in The Mandibles” (Lionel Shriver’s book about the financial collapse […]

“We’re more than the sum total of our choices, that all the paths we might have taken factor somehow into the math of our identity.”

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

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Happy New Year Cannonballers! Last year, despite achieving my goal of 120 books read and reviewed, I read about 20 books less than during Cannonball 9 which I attribute to spending a lot of time on books I either didn’t finish (Between the Bridge and the River) or spent more time than was necessary sloughing through (Map of Days). My goal this year, besides a humble Double Cannonball, is to allow myself to make quicker decisions regarding books I don’t want to finish. Luckily, I […]

Tesseracts freak me out, guys

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It’s strange, but true. I read A Wrinkle in Time when I was a kid and loved it, but trying to figure out tesseracts made me a bit stressed out. Dava Sobel’s The Planets, with it’s good explanations of a mind boggling solar system, did the same thing. And then we come to Crouch’s Dark Matter, which also talks about the creation of a multiverse. It’s too much for my simple brain – it’s all basically infinity and I just can’t comprehend and it actually makes […]



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