Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

An aptly named memoir

Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton & Me by Bernie Taupin

by 1 Comment

Cbr15bingo on the air I like Elton John’s music. I know people who are super fans, and I am not one of those, but growing up in the 1970s with older siblings, I heard his music all the time on the radio or on our stereo at home. Between my sibs and me, we probably had most of his albums from the 1970s, and then with the ’80s and MTV, you couldn’t miss his videos. Recently, I heard part of Marc Maron’s interview with Bernie […]

Never Forget

Maus A Survivor’s Tale Vol. I: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman

Maus A Survivor’s Tale Vol II: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman

by Leave a Comment

Cbr15bingo history Maus is a highly acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winning (1992) 2-volume graphic novel that made the news last year as the subject of a book banning in Tennessee (for bad words and a naked female mouse. Really.) Maus is about the Holocaust. Writer/illustrator Art Spiegelman interviewed his own father about what happened to him and their family in Poland during WWII. The Spiegelman family, like so many other Jewish families, was practically wiped out due to Nazi Germany’s extermination camps. In writing about this, […]

Not a Meal to Remember

Dinners with Ruth by Nina Totenberg

by Leave a Comment

Reading this book was a bit like saving up to go to a really nice restaurant only to have the  the food be overpriced and underwhelming. The book uses the relationship between Totenberg and Ginsburg as the hook to get you to buy/read the book. The book is really the autobiography of Nina Totenberg, but her approach is to weave her career and personal life together with Ginsburg’s. The technique doesn’t work. Totenberg is too deferential to Ginsburg to say anything other than Ruth was […]

Hopkinton, Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Wellesley, Newton, Brookline, and Boston

Boston Strong: A City's Triumph Over Tragedy by Casey Sherman, David Wedge

by Leave a Comment

This is the story of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, told from the perspectives of the civilians and police officers who were there that day. A few days ago I watched from my window as an endless stream of marathoners ran past, cheered on by the masses of people who’d showed up to watch despite the drizzly day. I live just a couple of miles from the finish line in Copley Square, so people were looking pretty haggard but thrilled as they passed me. It’s […]

Cult Revolt

Manhattan Cult Story: My Unbelievable True Story of Sex, Crimes, Chaos, and Survival by Spencer Schneider

by Leave a Comment

Spencer Schneider tells the story of his decades in School, “an esoteric school for inner development,” which was really just a cult. I love reading about cults – they’re fascinating in a horrifying, often voyeuristic way. Schneider was writing about his own story, about a cult I’d never heard of – two points in this book’s favor. I was excited to learn about how people could go about their daily business in New York City whilst having their lives held in a chokehold by a […]

“A society that does not respect women’s anger is one that does not respect women; not as human beings, thinkers, knowers, active participants, or citizens.”

Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger by Soraya Chemaly

by 6 Comments

“Is it possible to read a book about anger and not get mad? I haven’t found it possible in writing one. What are we doing? Why does anyone think that men who cannot say the word ‘period’ and do not know that the vagina and stomach are not connected are competent and trustworthy leaders?” I want to get my thoughts out before my book club meeting tomorrow (during which I have been told we will be smashing things! with protective eyewear*). I almost feel like […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo