Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Genghis Khan: A guy from a long time ago who was very important. I know some things about him now!

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford

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Ultimately I really enjoyed this audiobook. Audiobooks as a format really help me to absorb nonfiction books, particularly ones that I would normally have trouble taking the time to concentrate on. And this was a pretty fascinating book. I knew next to nothing about Genghis Khan, the Mongols, this period in history, or the cultures of the people who lived in this area. After reading the book I know a little! Firstly, Genghis Khan wasn’t even his name! His name was Temüjin. Genghis and Khan […]

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro

Gonzo by Hunter S Thompson (edited by Steve Crist & Laila Nabulsi)

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In May 1998, I was handed a copy of Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 by my new boyfriend. 22 years later, my love affair with both is still going strong. Thompson’s writing lit my brain up in a way I’d never really experienced before. Savagely funny and incredibly astute, especially when taking aim at the assassins of the American Dream, he even managed to make me understand American politics for a while (although this only ever lasts for as long as I’m […]

News from back then

Strange Victoriana: Tales of the Curious, the Weird and the Uncanny from Our Victorian Ancestors by Jan Bondeson

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Strange Victoriana, the first from my massive pile of Christmas swag, is an entertaining collection of the weird, wonderful, spooky, salacious, and sometimes downright macabre stories taken from the Illustrated Police News (IPN) – an immensely popular tabloid of the time (you’ll have seen some of its illustrations before, particularly if you’ve ever had any kind of interest in the Jack the Ripper case which the IPN went to town on). Victorians are often thought of as incredibly repressed and prudish, while a quick peruse […]

The King who brought back partying

A Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration by Jenny Uglow

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Charles II is an interesting figure to me, partly because he seems so much more human than the joyless Oliver Cromwell who’d preceded him having lopped Charles’ dad’s head off (also interesting to me, as despite my reading habits I’m actually anti-monarchy) but mostly influenced by the fact that before reading this, pretty much everything I knew about him was gleaned from Horrible Histories (and this song in particular – to be fair, they do a pretty decent job of covering the highlights). Thanks to […]

Hubris is the name of the game.

Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson

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This was just an okay read for me. A narrative non-fiction account of the hurricane in 1900 that was one of the most destructive in American history, Isaac’s Storm is really a feat of research and documentation. It’s clear Larson did his homework. It just never really grabbed me, until it did grab me but in a very unpleasant way. Larson painstakingly accounts the days leading up to the hurricane, mostly focusing on Isaac Cline, who headed up the Galveston, TX branch of the weather […]

Blood in the streets

Gangs of New York by Herbert Asbury

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Gangs of New York is exactly the sort of book that I’d like to use to beat some sense into the types of people always looking back fondly to the ‘good old days’ (which are always much better when seen through rose-tinted glasses and presume that the person looking back would have been a rich, white man to elevate themselves above all the shit),  a comprehensive look at the many, many stampings, stabbings, robberies, murders, riots and much more perpetrated by the incredible and vast […]



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