Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


“What’s the difference between a private library and a book hoarder?” “Feces.”

The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein

by 1 Comment

I’m a bit late jumping on the train with regards to this one. I think I’ve had a copy of this sitting on my ebook reader for years… and just never opened it up. Then, forgetting about my ebook, I then purchased the audiobook. Oops. Such a shame though; The Trauma Cleaner is one of those rare gems of a biography where a truly talented author gets a chance  to tackle a truly fascinating subject. The Trauma Cleaner is also unusual in that the subject, […]

Reasons why this is a cookbook not for me, at least not at this time

Good Things by Samin Nosrat

by Leave a Comment

Sometimes it’s pretty clear when a book is probably just fine, but maybe not for you, or at least you right now. Good Things by Samin Nosrat has some good things going for it. It’s got a lot of parts where there ar basically sets of theme and variation on a recipe or ingredient which can be nice when you’ve got a lot of something but don’t want to get bored. The premise of focusing on kind of simple pleasures is also something I can […]

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 […]

“A poem was pinned under Hoshiar’s picture of young Duleep: “I have been thrown into a far-flung place, had everything, all that I once cherished, my Kingdoms and my very life taken from me. I am now in a foreign place, so far from my people. So far from my homeland.”

The Patient Assassin: A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge, and India's Quest for Independence by Anita Anand

by Leave a Comment

A Indian freedom fighter waited more than two decades to exact revenge for the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre which was ordered by the British Raj – but the story is more complicated and less cinematic than it has been often depicted since. At the start of this book, the author notes that as the descendent of Indians, she had to set aside her natural aversion to the British Raj and admiration for Udham Singh to tell the story in as unbiased a way as she could. […]

“One of Harold Nicolson’s many endearing traits was to invent occasions brought about by some preposterous and improbable action on his part.”

Harold Nicolson: A Biography (Volume I: 1886-1929) by James Lees-Milne

by Leave a Comment

One of my continued passions is Edwardian era history and as I keep reading more books about it, some people pop up over and over again until finally I either buy a biography or their letters and diaries to figure out what they were up to. Harold Nicolson is one of those people who show up in every book you will read about the 1900s through to the 1960s, as he was involved in huge amounts of historical events and had a very busy social […]

“Off On An Interesting Adventure”

Flirting with Danger: The Mysterious Life of Marguerite Harrison, Socialite Spy by Janet Wallach

by Leave a Comment

CBR17 Bingo: Borders – Marguerite crosses the borders of many countries during her work as a journalist and spy, but also crossed the boundaries that constrained women in this era in both her work and her personal life. After being widowed young, Marguerite Harrison plunged into work as a journalist, but her charm and her adventurous spirit leads her into a more covert role as a spy. My understanding of the history of American spycraft is mostly limited to the hijinks of the OSS during […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo