Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam for layfolks

The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by James Martin

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Every now and again, there’s a picture of David Tenant that pops up on social media where he’s taking a selfie at a con, and there’s some guy just next to him with his nose in his phone. The caption is almost always some suggestion of what the other guy is missing being that close to a celebrity and not knowing it.  Here’s my version of that, kind of. I kind of remember the final time I graduated that the Commencement speaker was referred to […]

I’m not tough enough for the Canadian oil sands

Ducks by Kate Beaton

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I first became aware of Kate Beaton through her charming picture book, The Princess and the Pony, released in 2015.  My, at the time, young daughters loved the book about a tiny, warrior princess who wants a noble steed like the older warriors.  Instead on her birthday she is gifted a pony that farts too much. Shortly after the publication of her graphic novel autobiography, Ducks, in 2022, it seemed everyone on the internet was declaring what a good book it was.  However, I wasn’t really […]

With help from my friends

The Friendship Train: A True Story of Helping and Healing by Debbie Levy and Boris Kulikov

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When you think of World War II you don’t usually think of a sweet story about friendship, hope and caring, but that is what The Friendship Train: A True Story of Helping and Healing after World War II is about.  Author Debbie Levy tells of how after the devastating world war, Europe faced a brutal winter. Low on supplies, food, and practically everything needed for survival, it was figured most would not make it. But in an attempt to help, (from publisher description) spearheaded by […]

Forest Euphoria: Mostly memoir but with cool (and some bummer) queer nature facts

Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian

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I have been in the throes of moving and unpacking for the last 6 weeks (give or take), so reading has been slow and distracted. Even getting through this 6 hour audiobook took 2 weeks, and I was certainly distracted through most of it. So definitely take this review with a grain of salt. The book seems to be broken down in the sections that match a set of anecdotes from the author’s life with thematically similar creatures in nature that highlight queerness, diversity in […]

Man on the Run

Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original by Howard Bryant

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I like baseball and I like books, so it only stands to reason that I like books about baseball, too. But I do have reservations. I tend to prefer reading books about the game as a whole over a distinct period of time, or an account of one particular team or season. I’m less enamored of baseball player biographies, like Howard Bryant’s Rickey. They tend to fall into the trap of being repetitively structured, methodically going through a player’s career one season at a time, […]

Between the Accident and the Incident

Curse of the Blumenthals by Phyllis Karas

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Three generations of journalist Phyllis Karas’s family are marked by two great tragedies – the car crash which killed six members of the family, and the murder committed by the first grandchild born after that accident hardly twenty years later. This is an interesting mash-up of a book – part family history, part true crime, and sometimes even a scrapbook. Karas dives into the crimes which impacted her family, whether they were those who committed them or the victims, studying how their effects rippled through […]



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