Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

OK, Cole, Don’t Tease Me with a Fine Map Like That

Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East by Juan Cole

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cbr18bingo Maps     cbr18bingo – Maps I know far more about Napoleon’s later career than his earlier one, so this was pretty much all news to me.  Seems that after his initial successes in various battles in the Italian states, the French government decided that he was just the man to tackle a challenge that they had had their eye on for some time, obtaining access to India via the east end of the Mediterranean.  Some sort of short cut through Egypt seemed just […]

Some Days It Does Feel a Bit Impossible

The Impossible Job: The Truly Unbelievable World of Football Referees by William Ralston

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In a nutshell: Author Ralston explores the world of football (soccer in the US) refereeing told via interviews with some of the top professionals in the game. Best for: Anyone who claims to be a football fan. Anyone who has yelled ‘REFEREE?!’ at their TV (or at a live match). Referees. Quote that made me think: “A refereeing error can influence the result, but so does a payer misplacing passes, the manager making the wrong substitution, or a club owner signing the wrong striker.” “When […]

Vaccination Against Consumerism Pt 2.

Ways of Seeing by John Berger

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cbr18bingo: wealth (“Oil painting, before it was anything else, was a celebration of private property.”) If you are the kind of person who would enjoy reading a historical oil painting to filth; if you would like to understand why art museums are “like that”; if you have always been slightly confused by the (financial) system of worship so easily observed in art galleries around the world: Ways of Seeing is the book for you. Or, perhaps, this is the 4-part BBC miniseries for you. The miniseries memorably […]

Vaccination Against Consumerism Pt 1.

Super Normal: Sensations of the Ordinary by Naoto Fukasawa & Jasper Morrison

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cbr18bingo: craft Fitting, that my first reviewed book begins with a photo of a trash can. Fitting also, that the only book of substance in Foyles’ Interior Design section should be so slim and so plain. I only found this unassuming paperback after about fifteen minutes of rifling through glossy tomes. But perhaps that is fitting too: “when the student is ready, the master will appear.” At first glance, Super Normal seems like absurdist humour. For example, a photo of a plain blue bucket is captioned: […]

They are cooler and better than you are, and they will steal your girlfriend.

Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 by Lizzy Goodman

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CBR18 Bingo: Friends – Childhood friends formed bands together, many of whom had epic friend breakups after they got famous. Everyone thought we were fighters. I couldn’t care less about fighting. I want to fight off women, not men. ― Lizzy Goodman, Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 That Yeah Yeah Yeahs EP was really hard to find and should have been hard to find because it sounded like crap. Nick once told me that it […]

Get a kick outta this invention

The Sole Man: Jan Matzeliger's Lasting Invention by Shana Keller and Stephen Costanza

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The Sole Man: Jan Matzeliger’s Lasting Invention by Shana Keller, Stephen Costanza who is the illustrator.   I read this book via an online reader copy, however, it is available. I was looking through old links I have and this popped up. I was oh, okay, that’s interesting. I clicked the link and the cover hopped onto the screen. I loved the covers’ rich colors and bold use of them. The blues and pink popped, the creamy title both soothing and bounced. The story is […]



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