Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

People Who Made a Difference” Or “People Who Tried”

Joey: The Story of Joe Biden by Jill Biden and Kathleen Krull

Dr. Fauci: How a Boy from Brooklyn Because America's Doctor by Kate Messner

King Of Ragtime: The Story of Scott Joplin by Stephen Costanza

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I do not care what you think about Joe Biden, Dr. Anthony Fauci, or Scott Joplin (he fits my theme, if not a smidgen loosely, which is “People Who Made a Difference” Or “People Who Tried”), but these books are really cool. Okay, not “cool” as in The Fonz was cool or a snowman is cool, but in the way that a good book can be cool. Each of the below titles (though all are available, I read via online reader copies) talks about how […]

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 […]

Blueberry Muffin Brains and lots of other stuff

The Body A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson

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I started The Body A Guide for Occupants about a year ago; I had kind of a pattern starting the year off with a science book of some sort. This year, I guess I’m also ending with one. This book is on the one hand pretty readable since the science is explained in some detail without getting too technical; my last biology class was well over a decade ago. On the other hand, it’s also incredibly dense, making it sort of hard to read for […]

Never view being a girl as an obstacle

Virginia Wouldn't Slow Down!: The Unstoppable Dr. Apgar and Her Life-Saving Invention by Carrie A. Pearson

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Virginia Wouldn’t Slow Down!: The Unstoppable Dr. Apgar and Her Life-Saving Invention is another read online via Edelweiss that was mostly there. Carrie A. Pearson’s book was more fleshed out than the other sample I read, and perhaps is one of the best biographies of an unknown person I have read. And of course, I will find a copy when it comes out to fill in the plot points missing. Dr. Virginia Apgar would invent a test that would help doctors evaluate newborns and their health, […]

After writing this, I learned we are still making breakthroughs in this field! 

Fever: How Tu Youyou Adapted Traditional Chinese Medicine to Find a Cure for Malaria by Darcy Pattinson

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Have you heard of Tu Youyou? She is a Chinese scientist who used traditional Chinese medicine to help cure malaria. And she was not from the 1800s or even early 20th century when we think of malaria research happening, but she was working during the late 1960s and 1970s in a People’s Republic of China task force. Therefore, relatively “new” in the grand picture. And not only did she and other scientists figure out the right ingredients, amounts, heat, and such, she was one of […]

I have spent a good deal of 2020 in a cadaver-shaped hole.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

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And no, I do not mean an open grave. The more we hurtle towards impending doom- pandemics! global warming! world war!- the more solace I seek in, well, death. I didn’t set out on the morbid marathon on purpose, but here I am! It was not my intention to get down and dirty (ha!) with death this year, but I am enjoying the ride. I have been a long-time fan of Mary Roach since Spook, but for some reason I forgot to start at the […]



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