Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Johnson isn’t all Wet

Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson’s Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions by Chris Barton

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cbr13bingo Machinery   I wanted to do another book for Machinery (an interesting interpretation actually) but stumbled on this book by accident. I had an opportunity to read and enjoy. The definition of machinery is the parts of a non-organic/non-living item all having their place and job to do and are not organic in the way my other pick was. And Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson’s Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions is the perfect definition. Inspired by an activity Chris Barton did at a conference (you learn of […]

Professional Science Gets Ugly

The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson

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Bingo 4: People In addition to the cover being of a person, this is also a book about people on several levels, down to the genetics. On the surface it’s the biography of one of the winners of the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry, Jennifer Doudna for her work with the CRISPR. The thing is, that’s actually not totally accurate. This book is also an introduction to bio-engineering and general molecular biology, an expose on academic science world and how it’s shifted to more business […]

Roar! We are But a Speck in Time

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte

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Tell me I’m not alone: sometimes I’m sitting somewhere, minding my own business, when the thought intrudes, “I can’t believe that dinosaurs were real.” It just seems so impossible. Surely they are made-up movie creatures. How can such amazing beings have once roamed (and dominated) the world? Well, Steve Brusatte’s The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of Their Lost World tells you all about it. And I loved every second of it. Beware: this book will give you an existential crisis […]

Future reads I recommend now (so go and preorder at your local independent bookstore)

Book Buddies V01 Ivy Lost and Found by Cynthia Lord

Spider-Ham Graphic Novel: Great Power, No Responsibility by Steve Foxe

Waffles and Pancake: Planetary-YUM by Drew Brockington

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I said to myself this weekend: What did I do to log myself out of my Simon and Schuster account of free ebooks? Of course, who knows what the password is as it is the only one that I have not put on my list of passwords (hiding in my hidden spot). So, what is a poor girl to do? Go old school with wonderful and amazing in your hand reader copies! Book one was Book Buddies V01 Ivy Lost and Found created by Cynthia […]

Trees move slowly. Sometimes books about trees do, also.

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate by Peter Wohlleben

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Peter Wohlleben is a man to be admired. Having graduated from a forestry school in Germany, he worked for the forestry commission for more than 20 years but eventually became disillusioned by the common use of what he considered to be damaging forestry practices. He began applying his own ideas as manager of an ecologically-friendly beech forest, and he shares his knowledge and passion in the multiple books he’s written about trees. The Hidden Life of Trees, a New York Times bestseller, aims to make trees […]

My mind is blown, and not because I’ve been sampling magic mushrooms

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make our Worlds, Change our Minds, and Shape our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

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I have read many books on science and natural history, but few have made me stop reading every few pages to look up and declare to whomever is within hearing distance (currently, my husband and cats, because we’re in a pandemic), “This is fascinating.” I don’t care if you’ve never read a book about nature in all your previous existence. Entangled Life will ensorcel you with tales of carnivorous mushrooms, zombie fungi, acid trips, and superhero microorganisms that could end up saving the planet. If […]



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