Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Adult literacy

My Kentucky Moonlight School by Kim Michele Richardson

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My Kentucky Moonlight School is another book (read via an online reader) due in August 2026 but is a must to talk about now. Kim Michele Richardson’s story is about a family, their community and how they learn to read during “Moonlight sessions” of schooling. It is sweet, educational and even a little humorous at times.  This is enhanced by Chloe M. Giroux who illustrates the adventures of this family with earthy tones, bright shading and light use, and just the right amount of details. […]

Skirts Just Look So Good on Us!

Skirts: Fashioning Modern Femininity in the Twentieth Century by Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell

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Fashion can say a lot about the people that wear it and the places they occupy in time and space. As such, women starting to wear pants is a shorthand for progress in feminism – but, Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell argues, the evolution of skirts over the twentieth century too has plenty to say. Like the author, I wear a lot of dresses and skirts, mostly because they are an easy way to look like you’ve made an effort, and also let you slouch and lounge around […]

From dump to park

Once a Wasteland: From Toxic Dump to National Park by Diane Muldrow and Amy Jindra Hodgson

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Starting off almost poetically, Once a Wasteland: From Toxic Dump to National Park moves into the facts quickly. Everything is laid out in simple, but not simplistic terms. The overall tone is good, it allows you to access a piece of history and the extras allow the book to grow with the reader. However, “points” are lost due to the fact environmental stories are not new, it was not necessarily told in a new manner and I had questions that were not answered, such as […]

Shine your light

The Lonely Lighthouse: The Story of Little Sable Point Lighthouse by Stephanie Owen

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Picture books have become one of my favorite reading choices. I like the details and yet they can (sometimes) be no more than 40-50 pages. I get the satisfaction of reading and finishing a book usually in one sitting. And I also might learn something new if it is a historical or factual book. And The Lonely Lighthouse: The Story of Little Sable Point Lighthouse by Stephanie Owen covers all the bases. Due in mid April 2026 (read via an online reader copy), this is […]

All Roads Lead to the Oedipus Complex

The Fifty-Minute Hour by Robert Lindner

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CBR17 Bingo: Red – Behold, the cover. Robert Lindner, a prominent psychoanalyst during the 1940s, relates five unusual cases he has worked on – a murderer, a Communist, a bulimic, a Fascist, and a physicist who believed he was living a parallel life as overlord of a distant star system. I’m not sure where I heard of this book – most likely through the case of “Kirk Allen,” whose story of science fiction delusion is related in the final chapter of the book. While it […]

“Death is the engine that keeps us running, giving us the motivation to achieve, learn, love, and create.”

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

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CBR17 Bingo: Review – I first came across Caitlin Doughty and her books through numerous reviewers on Goodreads. Caitlin Doughty had been long fascinated with death, but when she started working at a crematory, she soon found herself more interested in the question of why death in America has become so distant from the general public. I am maybe not the right audience for Doughty’s message about the loss of intimacy and ritual in the American way of death. I am a Hindu, and we […]



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