Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

My father, unlike so many of the men he served with, knew just what he wanted to do when the war was over.

The Risk Pool by Richard Russo

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CBR12Bingo Pandemic – This is the second novel by the American novelist Richard Russo, and the second of his that I’ve read. On the cover we’re told in a blurb that that reader loved the characters in this novel the way he loved the characters in John Irving’s The World According to Garp, and while I can see that comparison in a way, I feel this is more of a case of Saul Bellow than John Irving, if we’re looking for forbears. The novel takes […]

Nature, red in tooth and claw (CBR12Bingo: Pandemic)

Devolution by Max Brooks

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I live in West Michigan, in a county that is known to have the highest incidences of deer collisions in the state. We’re a big city, but with patches of woods sprinkled throughout, and even though I am 100% in The City, I have been in touching distance of deer in large part to my next door neighbor being one of the largest woodland preserves in the city. I mention this because on a walk with the octolet through said park, I saw a deer, […]

Not as fluffy and carefree as the title and cover make it seem

Beach Read by Emily Henry

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#CBR12 Bingo: Pandemic (read what you want) Official book description: Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.   They’re polar opposites.   In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.   Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal […]

One for the times

Pale Rider by Laura Spinney

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In some very serendipitous timing, we ordered this book back in the fall, shortly before coronavirus made the news out of China.  Spinney’s history of the 1918 flu pandemic has become so very relevant, and luckily this history is also very readable- she is a science journalist, so has lots of practice translating science jargon and telling non-fiction stories.  The book is split into a number of sections with different focuses: the world that that flu emerged into (religious, superstitious, viruses as yet undiscovered, teeming […]

“It is better to fall off than to freeze.”

The White Spider by Heinrich Harrer

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The Eiger is a 3,967 metre (13,015 ft) mountain in the Swiss Alps, and the White Spider is a firn field in the upper portion of its infamous north face. Heinrich Harrer was a member of the first team to successfully climb it in 1938, and this is his account of this feat, and also a history of all attempts, successful or not, from 1935 to 1964. Back then, the Eiger north face was considered such a challenging and deadly climb that in German it […]

Maybe save this one for 2021.

Pandemic by Sonia Shah

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I love reading about infectious diseases, I really do. And I love reading about the history of public health, particularly in relation to infectious diseases and pandemics. But was it wise to read a book about pandemics, and the weaknesses in our public health infrastructure, at this particular moment in time? Perhaps not! It’s impossible to review this book without acknowledging the very weird time we are in, and the fact that Sonia Shah, like so many other infectious disease journalists and experts around the […]



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