Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“My biggest concern is the misuse of science to support policies.”

The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

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I wanted to find a good political book for Cannonball Bingo, and my husband quickly recommended The Fifth Risk (2018) by Michael Lewis. I listened to the first couple of minutes on Audiobook, and thought it sounded interesting. So, I decided to give it a shot. The reason I found the beginning of the book so interesting was that it described in detail what was happening in government offices when Trump took over after the election. Civil service workers were waiting with their binders full of information […]

Nightmares, just in time for Halloween

The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

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CBR14 BINGO: Gaslight, because Trump BINGO: Snake, Minds, Series, Cozy, Gaslight I make it a habit not to read books about politics, especially books about Donald Trump, because my sanity can only withstand so much. However, the “gaslight” category got me thinking about maybe breaking that rule. I had a copy of The Fifth Risk on my shelf, and I figured if anybody could get me through this, it would be financial journalist and nonfiction author of The Big Short and Moneyball, Michael Lewis. The Fifth […]

The Transition Didn’t Happen AND THEREFORE … What, Michael Lewis?

The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

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It started with a search for audiobooks. I am trying to run more (at all) as we get into spring here, and I’ve found that I am too picky about podcasts. There are only a couple I reliably like, and that adds up to maybe two hours of content a week. My preferred drug in podcasts is, I guess, interpretive digestible reporting*(?) so I tried to dig up some unfamiliar-to-me titles from authors who maybe sorta fit into that category. We’ll see how this strategy […]

Did not expect to love a book about economics and baseball but here we are

Moneyball by Michael Lewis

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I know far more about baseball than someone with my level of interest (mild) should. I have favourite players (Mookie Betts and Corey Seager), a lot of thoughts on player hair and facial hair (Cody Bellinger’s haircut, Seager’s unfortunate ‘goatee’) and I even know the team’s GM (Dave Roberts). In short: I live with a baseball fanatic (Dodgers fan, obviously) and have essentially absorbed these things, osmosis style from the many, many games that play in the background to my daily life during baseball season […]

Money Never Sleeps

Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis

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What’s incredible about Michael Lewis’ Liar’s Poker is just how funny it is. You want to be mad at all of these people for ruining the world, but they’re so ridiculous, you often can’t help but laugh. I’m more than familiar with Lewis’ work. Moneyball is one of my all-time favorite novels. The Big Short had me real angry. Lewis is one of the great journalists of my time. This was the book that kick started his career. And he didn’t need long to discover his writing voice. Alternating between his time as […]

Nonfiction Shorts II

The Coming Storm by Michael Lewis

The Battle for Paradise by Naomi Klein

Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara

Playing to Win by Michael Lewis

You are Ready for Takeoff by Susan Orlean

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The Coming Storm – Michael Lewis – 4/5 Stars This is a short essay/exploration of the topic of weather, the national government, and the use of data. Michael Lewis begins with the idea of how the government collects and stores data, and by this I mostly mean the kinds of data employed in government policies, administration, and the like. The easiest way to explain this in a broad way is to look at how little data was used in the prediction of weather until after […]



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