Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Men who hate women, parts 2 & 3

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

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Last year I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as part of CBR10 Bingo and loved it. Happily, I finally got back to the library to check out the two follow-up novels, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. For about the first hundred pages of The Girl Who Played with Fire, I was skeptical. The book picks up with Lisbeth Salander hanging out in Grenada where she’s getting a little R&R, studying math equations, getting pissed […]

“We study natural stupidity instead of artificial intelligence” (a Bromance)

The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis

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Behavioral economics is such a popular topic nowadays that noted economist and student of human behavior Richard Thaler was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in the field in 2017. I first became interested in the topic that same year when I was asked to give a presentation at work, and I started by reading Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational (read my review here!). Back in the 1970s, though, the suggestion that people, as a general rule, behave irrationally in all sorts […]

Are there really people willing to read twelve of these?

The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith

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I seem to be on a losing streak with mysteries. I bought this one from my local Friends of the Library bookshop for $1, and  you can bet I’m claiming that buck on my tax return next year because I sure didn’t get my money’s worth. Some years ago I read a handful of books in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, and I remember them being fun diversions, so when I saw this other series by Alexander McCall Smith, I was curious. After […]

Improbable + gloomy = Not interested

The Last Equation of Isaac Severy by Nova Jacobs

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This is going to seem like an odd way to start this review, but stay with me a minute while I describe a scene from one of my favorite old movies, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. Mr. Blandings (Cary Grant) purchases a wreck of a house in Connecticut. When he brings an engineer out to look at the property, the engineer tells him to tear the house down. “Tear it down!” an incredulous Blandings shouts. “If your sills were shot and your timbers was okay, […]

“Shame derives its power from being unspeakable. That’s why it loves perfectionists–it’s so easy to keep us quiet.”

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown

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Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, has spent two decades studying shame, vulnerability, and courage. This doesn’t necessarily make her a lot of fun at parties. In fact, she jokes that when she tells people she studies shame, they look away uncomfortably and find someone else to talk to. Yet she also has five best-selling books to her name, and her  TED Talk on vulnerability is one of the top 25 most popular TED talks of all time. I hesitate to […]

I read this book because my waiter wrote it–and guys, you need to start talking to your waiters more often

Bonds of Destiny by Rajesh Varma

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A little backstory about me: I like food. My husband and I and one of our good friends have what we call a “dining club,” which essentially amounts to the three of us going out to dinner about once a month, ordering a bunch of wine, and seeing how many witticisms ludicrous statements and/or Monty Python quotes the two guys can drop into the conversation before I lose it. It’s a good time. In February, we went to an Indian restaurant in Glendale, California called the […]



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