Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Few Squirts of a Turkey Baster

Normal Family: On Truth, Love, and How I Met My 35 Siblings by Chrysta Bilton

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CBR15 Passport Challenge: New to you authors #1 Chrysta and her sister are the daughters of a dynamic and damaged woman, a single lesbian who yearned for a child in the rather unaccepting 1980s – and found her ideal sperm donor in a hair salon. But both Debra and Jeffrey hid many secrets from their children. There’s that oft-quoted opening sentence of Anna Karenina – “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” I thought of that quote, and how […]

Remember the nothing class of Home Ec? Turns out it’s got a past.

The Secret History of Home Economics by Danielle Dreilinger

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What do chemistry, business, politics, and social justice have in common? I’m betting that no one would have automatically though “Home Economics!” but that’s exactly what The Secret History of Home Economics show. It all started with Catharine Beech, Olivia Washington (3rd wife of Booker T.), and Ellen Swallow in the late 1800s where educational opportunities for women were few and far between. By contextualizing studying chemistry as women as a way to develop better household practices, these ladies and more like them developed one […]

Curiosity = Happiness

Alone Time: Four Seasons, Four Cities, and the Pleasures of Solitude by Stephanie Rosenbloom

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“Alone, there’s no need for an itinerary. Walk, and the day arranges itself.” In Alone Time, New York Times travel writer Stephanie Rosenbloom travels solo to Paris, Istanbul, Florence, and New York. She shares details about the small, quiet moments that make up the most memorable parts of her trips: Alone, with no one at my side, I was also able to see le merveilleux quotidien, “the marvelous in everyday life”: a golden retriever gazing at a café chalkboard in Montmartre, as if reading the […]

The People Make the Place

The New Yorkers: 31 Remarkable People, 400 Years, and the Untold Biography of the World's Greatest City by Sam Roberts

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New York City has seen nearly a billion inhabitants in its 400 year long history, and a great many of them have been very remarkable. But there are also many how had an indelible impact on the city, even if they are mostly forgotten today. I do not like New York City. I am a Bostonian through and through. But I’ve been there many times, and I must admit that there is really no other place like it. The city has a strange essence to […]

Two Truths Diverged in the Shadow of Cape Horn

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

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In 1740, the Wager set off on a journey around the world with a secret mission to capture Spanish silver and gold. Two years later, a leaking longboat lands in Brazil full of desperate men. But these are not the only survivors of the Wager, and both captain and crew end up on trial as England attempts to determine the truth. I love a good survival story, but for some reason shipwrecks have always left me underwhelmed. Maybe it’s because I don’t like the beach. But I […]

“There are three stages in scientific discovery. First, people deny that it is true, then they deny that it is important; finally they credit the wrong person.”

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

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When I was looking at the 2022 Read Harder Challenge for the first time and saw #9: “Read the book that’s been on your TBR the longest”, I knew without looking what that book would be, even though I haven’t looked at the beginning of my list in years. And that’s because I’ve been avoiding this book for as long as I’ve wanted to read it. Just one word for you: supervolcano. In Bryson’s signature breezy, humorous, yet intelligent style, he will explain to you […]



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