Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Most influential murder mystery of all time?

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

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CBR15 BINGO: You Are Here, because I got this book from my local library I have long been a fan of Agatha Christie, and of Hercule Poirot in particular. I’m certain I read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd when I was a young teen, but I didn’t remember anything about it. Granted, it was a long time ago, but given that Roger Ackroyd is considered one of the most influential mystery novels of all time, I was surprised I couldn’t recall any of the details. […]

Cute illustrations make me happy, Part 2

The Atlas of Amazing Birds by Matt Sewell

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CBR15 BINGO: Picture This, because the illustrations are the best part Last year, when I reviewed Penguins and Other Seabirds, I discovered that Matt Sewell has published other collections of his delightful bird illustrations, and I longed to get my hands on some of them. To my delight, I received The Atlas of Amazing Birds for Christmas last year. As with Penguins and Other Seabirds, Sewell’s Atlas of Amazing Birds features small snippets–a paragraph or two at most–about each species along with a beautiful watercolor illustration, […]

There’s so much more to the world than we know

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong

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CBR15 BINGO: In the Wild, because it’s about animal senses (which is pretty wild!) A bug called a treehopper communicates by creating vibrations through its abdomen. A dog’s olfactory sense is so acute that it can tell twins apart by their smell. Shore birds called red knots use their bills to feel prey under the sand. These are a few of the amazing sensory tales that Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ed Yong reveals in An Immense World. More than a collection of animal facts, An Immense […]

The darker side of science

The Icepick Surgeon: Murder, Fraud, Sabotage, Piracy, and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science by Sam Kean

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CBR15 BINGO: Violence, for murder, icepick lobotomies, cruelty, and general skulduggery described in this book The Icepick Surgeon is the latest book by Sam Sean, my favorite science writer. If you haven’t read any of his books (like this one, or this one, or this one, or this one), they delightfully balance science with history in a series of true-life tales. As the the title indicates, The Icepick Surgeon explores the darker side of science, citing examples of how humankind has benefited from some really reprehensible […]

I’m not gonna lie. I came for the “monsters.”

Dr. Mütter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovations at the Dawn of Modern Medicine by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

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CBR15 BINGO: North America, because Thomas Dent Mütter was an American physician, and his museum is located in Philadelphia, PA. When I heard there was a book about Thomas Mütter, I knew I had to read it. Some years ago I visited the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, which is a museum of medical history that “displays its beautifully preserved collections of anatomical specimens, models, and medical instruments in a nineteenth-century ‘cabinet museum’ setting.” A quick walk through the museum’s site should give you an idea […]

Science fiction + philosophy = a curiously French novel

The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier

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CBR15 BINGO – Take Flight, because a flight from Paris to New York figures critically in the plot of the novel On March 10, an Air France flight leaves Paris for JFK Airport in New York City. Among the 200+ passengers and crew aboard flight 006 are a young attorney, a closeted Nigerian pop star, a hitman leading a double life, a French novelist, a young film editor and her much older romantic partner, and a seven-year-old girl. The plane encounters turbulence so fierce that […]



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