Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Wild Wild Country

Rajneeshpuram: Inside the Cult of Bhagwan and Its Failed American Utopia by Russell King

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In the 1980s, a man who calls himself God and his disciples attempt to set up a utopia in the countryside of Oregon, and they are not afraid to bend laws and hurt people to get what they want. As a Hindu myself, I have a quite skeptical view of all the Western-catering groups that sprung up out of India in the 70s and 80s, the gurus promising to teach people to lead fulfilling lives based on a lot of Orientalist stereotypes and mysticism. And […]

Happy or Wealthy, But Not Both

Heiresses: The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies by Laura Thompson

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Though you’d think money smoothes away all obstacles, it seems in the lives of these heiresses to be the thing that stands between them and happiness. Using the examples of individual heiresses to make her case, Thompson shows how the lives of heiresses evolved with the times, and what they may need to achieve happiness in their different ways. The book is broken down into four sections which deal with different eras of heiresses, from the heiress abductions of the Georgian times to the American […]

Claustrophobia

Choosing Light: When an Earthquake Buried Me and My Family for 5 Days, I Learned to Fully Live by Viral Dalal

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On vacation with his family in the coastal town of Bhuj, Viral Dalal is buried under the rubble of an eight-storey building as an earthquake hits the town. And there he must wait, for five long days, never knowing if his family is safe or he himself will survive. An important thing to know going into this review is that I am severely claustrophobic. I cannot imagine staying calm in the space that Dalal was trapped in for more than five minutes, let alone five […]

Very big thanks to andtheIToldYouSos for the heads up that this existed! Had a fun time nerding out.

The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 by James Shapiro

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This was extremely interesting. I am not deluded enough to think that it would be interesting for everyone. If you like historical analysis of notable literary texts, this book will be your jam. Especially if you are into Shakespeare. I have decided that this combination of historical context and literary analysis is something I really like. One of my favorite books of the last several years was Jane Austen, the Secret Radical, which did something similar, except across Austen’s entire career instead of focusing on only […]

“What is grief, if not love persevering?”

The Art of Reassembly: A Memoir of Early Mother Loss and Aftergrief by Peg Conway

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In November 1970, when cancer treatments were rudimentary and grief counseling nonexistent, my cousin Peg Conway’s mother died at the age of 37. My aunt Mary Lee was my father’s twin, and she had had breast cancer that metasticized into brain cancer and took her life, leaving behind a husband and four children. In the decades since that tragic event, Peg has struggled to deal with her unacknowledged grief, and this memoir chronicles her journey from hurting child to adult looking for healing. It is […]

Sometimes YouTube leads to books!

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? by Caitlin Doughty

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Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? By Caitlin Doughty Caitlin Doughty is a mortician/funeral home director, and a YouTube content creator (but not the bad kind.)  She posts videos about death – her channel is called “Ask a Mortician.”  I’m not sure how the YouTube algorithm got me there, but one of Caitlin Doughty’s videos popped up on my recommended video list one day, and so I watched it.  And then I proceeded to binge watch most of her videos that weekend.  (That’s a LOT […]



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