Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Coming to a Bookstore Near You

Prickles and Prides by Wendy Barron

Hooray for My Brain! by Paul Meisel

by Leave a Comment

I am not always a science person, but when I find one that I like, it sticks with me and is usually a children’s book. Two such books are reviewed below. One is about animals in both fiction illustrations and factual humor and the other is about the nature of the human brain for younger readers. Both were read via online reader copies and the first is due early April 2026 and the second later in the month.. As much as I enjoyed Prickles and […]

Why not distract yourself from the workings of the world with the workings of your own insides?

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach

by 2 Comments

…or more frequently, the misfiring insides of others. Fistulated fellows? Check. Elvis and his mega-colon? Check. Taste-testing pet food, pus, rancid oil, and/or the saliva of others? All yours and more to spare! I like to, for the most-part, enjoy nonfiction via audio books. Frequently, I wander around the house doing whatever needs doing while playing books through a speaker. While I whole-heartedly recommend Gulp, I do NOT recommend subjecting innocent bystanders (sorry, husband!) to the dirty work within. Not everything here is gross. And really, […]

I have spent a good deal of 2020 in a cadaver-shaped hole.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

by 4 Comments

And no, I do not mean an open grave. The more we hurtle towards impending doom- pandemics! global warming! world war!- the more solace I seek in, well, death. I didn’t set out on the morbid marathon on purpose, but here I am! It was not my intention to get down and dirty (ha!) with death this year, but I am enjoying the ride. I have been a long-time fan of Mary Roach since Spook, but for some reason I forgot to start at the […]

Please Mary, may I have some more?

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach

by Leave a Comment

Gulp is my second Mary Roach book (I’d previously read and loved Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers) and is a thoroughly entertaining trip through our digestive systems. I do have digestive issues of my own, which no doubt heightened the appeal of this book to me, but as it’s so interesting and entertainingly written, I expect those whose stomachs don’t kick off regularly will also find something to enjoy. Gulp takes you through the whole process – from smell (which actually provides us […]

On Slavery and Body-Snatching

by 1 Comment

Nemo Johnston is an intelligent black man with a strong instinct for survival. He is also a slave in antebellum South Carolina, and is purchased by Dr. Frederick Johnston and his colleagues of the South Carolina Medical College in 1857 to serve as a janitor, a butler and, most importantly, as a body-snatcher (or “resurrectionist”) for the school’s desperate anatomy department. Nemo undertakes the job with the understanding that it is primarily black bodies he will be unearthing for the dissections, but any sense of […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo