Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“I don’t really have any dreams beyond comfortable pants and unlimited sparkling water” (Bingo)

We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby

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#CBR11 Bingo: The Collection (Could also work for True Story, Cannonballer Says, Own Voices and Rainbow Flag) Official book description: Sometimes you just have to laugh, even when life is a dumpster fire. With We Are Never Meeting in Real Life., “bitches gotta eat” blogger and comedian Samantha Irby turns the serio-comic essay into an art form. Whether talking about how her difficult childhood has led to a problem in making “adult” budgets, explaining why she should be the new Bachelorette–she’s “35-ish, but could easily […]

So did you know Napoleon wrote romance novels early in his career?

Ambition and Desire: The Dangerous Life of Josephine Bonaparte by Kate Williams

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#CBR11 Bingo: True Story From Goodreads: Their love was legendary, their ambition flagrant and unashamed. Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife, Josephine, came to power during one of the most turbulent periods in the history of France. The story of the Corsican soldier’s incredible rise has been well documented. Now, in this spellbinding, luminous account, Kate Williams draws back the curtain on the woman who beguiled him: her humble origins, her exorbitant appetites, and the tragic turn of events that led to her undoing. Born Marie-Josèphe-Rose […]

This book is cute. Wombats are way cuter.

The Secret World of Wombats by Jackie French

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CBR11bingo: I LOVE THIS What do I love? Wombats! To be fair, I’m partial to animals in general. I even try to coexist peacefully with centipedes, in spite of them giving me massive heebie jeebies. But wombats belong to that incredible group of mammals known as marsupials, of which I’m something of an aficionado. As my friends and more than a few disinterested strangers know, I volunteer on the weekends as a docent at the Los Angeles Zoo, where I not only educate the public […]

Can You See Me America?

I Am Not Your Negro by James Baldwin

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I heard about the movie, but had no idea there was a companion book to it.   “In his final years, Baldwin had envisioned a book about his three assassinated friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King. His deeply personal notes for the project have never been published before. Peck’s film uses them to jump through time, juxtaposing Baldwin’s private words with his public statements, in a blazing examination of the tragic history of race in America.” The writing, essays, the photos that […]

Infamy, infamy! They’ve all got it infamy!

Dangerous Days in the Roman Empire by Terry Deary

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Dangerous Days in the Roman Empire is the second of my Terry Deary haul and proved to be far more information packed than the one I read on Ancient Egypt, covering three centuries of Roman history from the rule of Augustus to Rome’s fall. While lip service is given to some aspects of plebeian life, such as a look at some of the jobs that a Roman citizen might have, it’s very much a look at its rulers instead in a whistlestop tour through the […]

Provocative, uneven collection of essays (Bingo!)

The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist by Richard P. Feynman

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Cbr11bingo Science. BINGO! These essays are by turns provocative and exasperating. Richard P. Feynman, who died in 1988, was a brilliant physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1965. He also was part of the Manhattan Project, was a distinguished lecturer at Cal Tech, and served as a member of the Rogers Commission which investigated the Challenger disaster. The Meaning of It All is a short collection of three lectures that Feynman gave in 1963. In these lectures his goal was to discuss the impact […]



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