Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Around the world in 72 days – and more than that

19th Century Female Explorers by Caroline Roope

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CBR 15 Bingo – In the Wild: The women of this book ventured into the wild spaces of pretty much very continent at some point or another. In the heyday of European colonialism, social mores were constrained for women, who were expected to stay domestic and tend hearth and home. Despite this, many European women managed to go traveling around the world on just as exciting adventures as their males counterparts did, and often recorded what they saw with clearer eyes as well. Truth is […]

She showed her knees and swam away a winner

Annette Feels Free: The True Story of Annette Kellerman, World-Class Swimmer, Fashion Pioneer, and Real-Life Mermaid by Katie Mazeika

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When looking through the old online reader copy links I found some surprises but others, like Annette Feels Free: The True Story of Annette Kellerman, World-Class Swimmer, Fashion Pioneer, and Real-Life Mermaid was only a small surprise as I like biographies of unknown (or at least mostly unknown) people. And Kellerman is a fairly unknown name today. But that was not the case when she was a swimmer. Taking Australia by storm, a young teen took to swimming like fish takes to swimming. It did […]

‘To their dismay, he replied that he may as well do a course on Roman dogs.’

A Rome of One's Own by Emma Southon

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Conventional Ancient Roman histories may be dominated by men, but that tells an incomplete story. Emma Southon tells the stories of twenty-one women who made their mark on the empire. While I enjoy reading about history, ancient history is usually not my jam – with one major exception. I will read anything Emma Southon writes, and wish fervently every time I finish one of her books that I hadn’t already read all of her older ones. It’s the conversational tone, the clear pleasure with which […]

“She’d been seeing things through men’s eyes for years. Her entire career, men had informed her what was good and what wasn’t. And she’d always assumed they were right.”

The Change by Kirsten Miller

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I had been in a bit of a reading slump lately, i.e., it had been a minute since I had a slam dunk, a can’t-put-down book that was going to make me shout about it to innocent bystanders. I asked my reading peeps for something that would fill this void and my friend delivered on all cylinders. I’M EXCITED TO SHOUT ABOUT THIS BOOK AT YOU. I loved it 5000. This book is tasty and scrumptious. A true chef’s kiss of literary perfection: a well-written […]

Never view being a girl as an obstacle

Virginia Wouldn't Slow Down!: The Unstoppable Dr. Apgar and Her Life-Saving Invention by Carrie A. Pearson

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Virginia Wouldn’t Slow Down!: The Unstoppable Dr. Apgar and Her Life-Saving Invention is another read online via Edelweiss that was mostly there. Carrie A. Pearson’s book was more fleshed out than the other sample I read, and perhaps is one of the best biographies of an unknown person I have read. And of course, I will find a copy when it comes out to fill in the plot points missing. Dr. Virginia Apgar would invent a test that would help doctors evaluate newborns and their health, […]

St. Oscars world

The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente.

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I did not think I would like the short novel; The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente. I felt I would never understand it and was going to stop reading as things felt disjointed, the narrator was bouncing all over, and there was stuff that was very off. The book felt like a translation that was not smoothly translated at that. However, once I understood the flow (there was one), the bounces between “really then, then, and now,” plus how reliable the narrative is […]



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