Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A hurricane of jacarandas, strangling figs, hanging vines.

Nature Obscura: A City’s Hidden Natural World by Kelly Brenner

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I’ve always been intrigued by (OK obsessed with) nature. Stick me next to a window and you’ll find me staring outside, looking for signs of wildlife. Come spring, you’ll find me kneeling on the sidewalk next to every snail and slug I see, trying to get the perfect picture. When I worked at a Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, a spider made a web on the light in my office and we named him Stanley and fed him mealworms meant for the baby birds. When I moved […]

“The caterpillars were ordered to appear in court on the twenty-eighth of June, at a specified hour, where they would be assigned legal representation.”

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach

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I was so happy when Mary Roach announced this book, because I have been missing her writing. I never read her last book, even though I tried and couldn’t get more than ten minutes in before waving the white flag, because reading about warfare and war and its consequences is something that I found actively unpleasant. And this book sounded so silly! And it’s about animals. I fucking love animals! Even the ones most people dislike, like rats and spiders and snakes. I anticipated laughter […]

“Lip . . . Dip . . . Paint.”

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore

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What I have to say about this book can be whittled down to one classic Samuel L. Jackson moment in cinema: And I truly mean that. Anyone with an ounce of empathy will find this one a tough go. Moore extensively researched the women this story is about, and she pulled not only from scholarly books and articles about them, but from their own personal correspondence, journals, and memories from friends and family. The result is that you get a clear picture of just exactly […]

The History of Flies and Mosquitos: Final Book of the Year

Historia de las moscas y de los mosquitos: y su influencia en el devenir de la humanidad by Xavier Sistach

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This is it: this will be my final book for the year, and #26 for my reviews. And I have saved the most difficult book for last   I’m not going to lie, it took my close to 4 months to make my way through Historia de las moscas y de los mosquitos: y su influencia en el devenir de la humanidad This is honestly because the books was well above my skill level. However, many of the books that were at my skill level […]

Listen to your guts

Science Comics: The Digestive System: A Tour Through Your Guts by Jason Viola

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I was going to use this Science Comics: The Digestive System: A Tour Through Your Guts by Jason Viola for the Bingo Machine category. But I had a hard time finishing the book. Not because it was bad, but because I had little interest in the subject (which is why I tried it. If I could learn something or enjoy it, then I knew it was a good book). But that means I need to concentrate on things, making me take my time to get […]

“Thanks to their neural plasticity, their ability to shift and change their connections with other cells, you and I walk the earth with the ability to be flexible in our thinking, adaptable to our environment, and capable of choosing who and how we want to be in the world. Fortunately, how we choose to be today is not predetermined by how we were yesterday.”

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor

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Y’ALL. I DID IT. MY 52ND BOOK! MY CANNONBALL IS COMPLEEEEEEEETE. Hip hooray! Fist bumps! High fiving angels!! Last year I didn’t quite make it, and the year before I think I squeaked across the finish line or just missed the CBR deadline but this year I’m in with weeks to spare. WOOOOOOOOOO! (Soft violins begin) Wait! Before I get off the stage, I would like to give some thank yous. Big hugs to everyone participating in CBR for serving as an inspiration to read […]



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