Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

A childhood idol turned into a real person

Say Everything by Ione Skye

by Leave a Comment

I was probably about twelve years old when I first watched Say Anything with John Cusack and Ione Skye, and it made a deep impression on me. In fact, it shaped my goals for most of my teenage years. I still have a very clear memory of Ione Skye’s character, Diane, marking every word that she looked up in her giant dictionary. I thought she was beautiful and smart, and I wanted to be just like her. In fact, because of Diane, I was intent on becoming […]

“The ultimate effect of unceasing propaganda has now been to cancel out the effect of all news alike.”

A Chill in the Air: An Italian War Diary, 1939-1940 by Iris Origo

by Leave a Comment

Another random bookstore find, as so many good books in my life are. It’s why I trawl through my favorite sections! A Chill in the Air: An Italian War Diary, 1939-1940 is what the title conveys. Iris Origo was an American born woman married to an Italian man (although she spent most of her life in Italy from childhood) and this is her diary of 1939-1940 as Italy slowly descends into war. Origo was a woman from a highly privileged background — her godfather was the […]

Highly Entertaining Diaries Full of the Worst Opinions You’ll Ever Read

Henry "Chips" Channon: The Diaries 1918-38 by Henry Channon (edited by Simon Heffer)

by Leave a Comment

I’ve spent the last month or so working my way through this first volume of the diaries of Henry “Chips” Channon, and what a ride. My current opinion is that he’s the worst guy around but he is a great and entertaining writer who has never met a social ladder he did not want to climb, a royal he was unable to charm, and a cutting remark unsaid. He lived a really fascinating life where he knew every famous political and upper class English person […]

The Power of Audacity

The Improbable Victoria Woodhull by Eden Collinsworth

by Leave a Comment

Victoria Woodhull started life being paraded around as a child psychic by her conman father and marrying an alcoholic twice her age, but through a lot of work, luck, and audacity, she lived many lives as a stockbroker, a newspaper editor, a suffragette, the first female presidential candidate, and much more. Victoria Woodhull is one of those interesting American characters that’s been popping up in books I’ve read set in the Gilded Age for several years. She was eccentric and scrappy, but in many ways […]

She just wanted to be a doctor

Carlotta's Special Dress: How a Walk to School Changed Civil Rights History by Carlotta Walls Lanier, Lisa Frazier Page and Vanessa Brantley-Newton

by Leave a Comment

Carlotta’s Special Dress: How a Walk to School Changed Civil Rights History by Carlotta Walls Lanier, Lisa Frazier Page, and illustrator Vanessa Brantley-Newton   Read  via online reader, the book is actually out and about for purchase and reading. This book seemed like it would be “okay” or a nice book on a person I knew a little about, what a nice way to introduce them to kids, but would not be anything “wow.” Don’t judge a book by its cover and don’t assume because […]

Exploring love

Love, Retold by Tikva Wolf

by Leave a Comment

With celebrities coming out as non-mongomous and personal situations with friends and acquaintances, I decided to learn more about polyamory. Questions to poly and/or open relationshiped people, some online reading and more took me to Tikva Wolf. Their work, Ask Me about Polyamory: The Best of Kimchi Cuddles, I learned a few more things in a safe environment. Their non-technical, non-textbook format allowed me to stop and think, allowing me to understand things on an easier level than in academic forms. This led me to […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo