Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“When love buds between great princes”

Queens of the Age of Chivalry by Alison Weir

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England’s Age of Chivalry was a surprisingly turbulent period marked by coups, civil unrest, and outright war on multiple fronts. We meet five queens in this book, including one of the most reviled and one of the most beloved in all of English history. This is the third book in Alison Weir’s England’s Medieval Queens, in which she profiles the queens of medieval England from the Conquest to (I believe) the end of the War of the Roses. In this book, we meet the queens […]

Exploring the Newgate State Prison and Copper Mine: Connecticut’s Most Interesting Tourist Attraction

Newgate: From Copper Mine to State Prison by William G. Domonell

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CBR15Bingo: Edibles (what these poor men had to eat was truly horrific, despite the tour guide trying to tell us they ate well — the explanatory board on the grounds of the prison and this book both say the men had to eat pickled pork that the guards would throw on the ground and then the prisoners would have to boil it in the water from the forge). This is a brief volume explaining the history behind the historic Newgate Prison and Copper Mine, which […]

Norway 1620, France 1731, Pennsylvania 1929, Lesotho 1948…

Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials by Marion Gibson

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This is the story of many women and men from across the centuries and around the world who have been tried for witchcraft, and the often surprising historical currents that led them there, and influenced whether they would be allowed to live or die. I was born about an hour away from Salem, Massachusetts, though I never went to visit until 2019. Of course I went in October, which is the absolute peak of their tourist station, and battled my way through a crowded open […]

A Historic Mystery on the Mountain

The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession, and Death on Mount Everest by Mark Synnott

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Many moons ago I read Into Thin Air and it sparked a Mt. Everest fascination in me. I can’t say that before 2015 I thought overmuch about the highest peak in the world, and I’m someone who enjoys a good walk but has zero intention of ever tackling anything like mountain climbing. But… I have been devouring content about the mountain and other thirteen 8,000-meter peaks ever since. So, when I spotted reviews of Mark Synnott’s The Third Pole I added it to my list and […]

Kansas City Confidential

Kingdom Quarterback: Patrick Mahomes, The Kansas City Chiefs, and how a once Swingin' Cow Town Chased the Ultimate Comeback by Mark Dent and Rustin Dodd

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I think I have a thing for books like this and want to read more of them. I visited Kansas City twice. It was fine. Unmemorable. I mean, I didn’t dislike it. I just didn’t get a good grasp for it. And I don’t think I have an east coast snob’s bias against midwestern cities. I enjoyed my time in Cincinnati and Indianapolis respectively. I just didn’t find much going on in KC outside of great barbecue and the excellent Negro League Hall of Fame. […]

“All the things that are wrong in the world seem conquered by a library’s simple unspoken promise: Here I am, please tell me your story; here is my story, please listen.”

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

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Look, I’m just gonna do the thing. Here is (part of) the blurb: On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, “Once that first stack got going, it was ‘Goodbye, Charlie.’” The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the […]



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