Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I know I am, but what are you?

The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin

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Or the full name: The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People’s Lives Better, Too). Yeesh. We all love taking personality quizzes, don’t we? Which Hogwarts house we’d belong to (I’m a Ravenpuff), which is our True Colour (Green/Blue tie), which Friends character we’d be (…Mondler). Or, perhaps slightly more scientifically, our Myers-Briggs profile, or Big Five ratings. When I was in high school, there was one proto-BuzzFeed-type website where you could do all sorts […]

Ugh fine I like Brene Brown

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brene Brown

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I work to not be this person, but I definitely have a touch of the “if everybody likes x maybe I don’t want to like x” stubborn streak. I’ve identified it as sort of a pointless attitude (I mean, I’m only hurting myself) and I strive to be more “let people live” but the overwhelming popularity of Brene Brown had me hesitate to pick up this book. That, and the fact that I was certainthat her writing was going to make me confront some things […]

Care. Tasks. Are. Morally. Neutral.

How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis

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Are you a parent? If no, are you at least a human? Do you struggle with any of the following: housework, meal prep/planning/obtaining/cooking, laundry, the constant mental energy suck of parenting, daily hygiene? Is any of that a result of depression, ADHD, disability, life-is-a-marathon exhaustion, lack of support, having more to do than there are hours in the day? Do you feel: guilt, shame, anxiety, depression, shitty self-worth, like a failure? If you answered yes to any of those questions or anything similar, BUY THIS […]

Borderline Personality Disorder Unpacked

Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking your life back when someone you care about has borderline personality disorder by Paul T Mason and Randi Kreger

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This is a tough book to review, but I’ll try my best. If you know, or suspect, someone in your life is suffering from BPD (and rest assured – they are truly suffering and in pain) and you perform a random google search seeking help, you’ll get billions of hits. Factsheets, support groups, horror-stories…. A significant portion of the internet is devoted to BPD because it is such a nefarious condition/disease/illness (I am not a mental health advocate or professional, so apologies if I’m using […]

Anything Worth Doing is Worth Doing Partially

How to Keep House While Drowning: 31 Days of Compassionate Help by KC Davis

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Note: I have also reviewed a revised and expanded edition of this book due out in late April, 2022.   I believe deeply in letting go of shame*, especially when it comes to house work. There are a lot of reasons why house keeping can get away from you and putting a lot of shame on yourself about it is unnecessary and counter productive. I know this deeply and truly about other people. It is much much harder to apply those beliefs to myself. A […]

Nothing Slow About It

The Art of Slow Writing by Louise DeSalvo

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THE ART OF SLOW WRITING – Reflections on Time, Craft, and Creativity by Louise DeSalvo Of all the writing self-help books I’ve ingested recently, this one is probably the most helpful but the most badly named. It’s not about writing slowly at all. It’s about the tools a writer should be familiar with and possibly use to improve their craft. Nowhere does slowness enter into it unless it’s during the editing process at the end. I appreciate these writing books where the author is trying […]



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