Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Everything is connected

The Secret Network of Nature: The Delicate Balance of All Living Things by Peter Wohlleben

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CBR16 BINGO: And Also, a repeat of the Earth Day square BINGO: Détente, And Also, Scandal, Tech, Rings Wolves in Yellowstone National Park support the beaver population. Salmon help trees grow. Ravens and wolves form an alliance against bears. Peter Wohlleben’s The Secret Network of Nature is filled with fascinating stories about the interconnectivity and delicate balance of our environment. Wohlleben is a German forestry expert who has written several bestsellers, including The Hidden Life of Trees and The Inner Life of Animals. Given my […]

Some really beautiful moments don’t necessarily add up to a masterpiece of a novel

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

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CBR16 BINGO: Détente, because Billy is always trying to keep the peace Amor Towles is an undeniably talented writer. Having fallen in love with A Gentleman in Moscow and being charmed by Table for Two, I came to expect that I would adore just about anything he wrote. And certainly, there is a lot to like in The Lincoln Highway. At times I would be cruising along like the old Studebaker in the story when a particular turn of phrase or small vignette would stop me […]

Science begins at home (includes link to a fun video if you’re having a bad day)

One Wild Bird at a Time by Bernd Heinrich

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CBR16 BINGO: Earth Day, because it’s about observing birds and nature BINGO (diagonal): Bananas, Cult, Dreams, Earth Day, Rings Bernd Heinrich is a biologist/naturalist/professor who has written numerous books about birds and bird behavior. I’ve read some of his other books and found them to be a little dense, but he is clearly an expert in the field and an avid bird lover. In One Wild Bird at a Time, he encourage his readers to conduct their own experiments by closely observing the world around […]

For a being as sophisticated as you are, it is baffling how little understanding you have of the composition of your own mind

Network Effect by Martha Wells

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CBR16 BINGO: Tech, because Murderbot is a construct of robotic and human parts (Obviously) As my Bingo board can confirm, I’ve been zipping through the Murderbot Diaries this summer and having a good time getting to know SecUnit and its “friends.” Book #5, Network Effect, is the longest entry in the series so far, the first “full-length” novel in a series previously comprising novellas. In Network Effect, Dr. Mensah, SecUnit’s favorite human, sends it on a research mission with a couple of new characters–Mensah’s teenage […]

Highly intelligent cats and smack-talking dolphins. What’s not to love?

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

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Many people fantasize about an estranged relative dying and leaving them a fortune or a thriving business. Few people would indulge in this fantasy if the estranged relative’s business were villainy, and if, in addition to the job, they inherited a long list of enemies. This is the situation Charlie Fitzer finds himself in when his Uncle Jake dies and he’s visited by his uncle’s second-in-command, Mathilda Morrison. Even before Morrison shows up, Charlie has problems. Once a successful journalist, he’s now an underemployed substitute […]

Ted Chiang is our best argument for a STEAM education

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

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CBR16 BINGO: Celestial, because the first story is about humans building a tower into the heavens Four years ago I fell in love with Ted Chiang’s short story collection Exhalation, and I’ve finally made good on the promise to myself to read Stories of Your Life and Others. If you’ve read any of his work, you won’t be shocked to hear that this is the most moving, inventive, and thought-provoking collection I’ve read in years. Ted Chiang, a graduate of Brown University with a B.S. […]



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