Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


I need this band to be real now

Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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Throughout my youth I was addicted to rock biographies. Loving those covering bands from the 60s and early 70s in particular, Daisy Jones and The Six could easily have been one of those I read all the way back then. Y’know, if they weren’t fictional. It’s a testament to how well this is written that at some point, I definitely crossed over into weird “they’re real and I must hear their music” territory. Daisy Jones and The Six charts the meteoric rise of the band […]

A very straightforward biography of a noteworthy woman.

Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space by Lynn Sherr

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Turns out I didn’t know very much at all about Sally Ride. I mean, what I knew about her was very limited, and half wrong. I knew that her name was Sally Ride, and that she was the first woman in space (she wasn’t, she was the first American woman in space; the first woman was cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, who Sally once met covertly). So this book was very interesting for me, just in terms of learning about this fascinating woman, even though the writing […]

A well-rounded portrait of a rock icon

Janis: Her Life and Music by Holly George-Warren

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Janis Joplin has been the subject of a number of biographies. She is an irresistible topic after all. A rising star, a trailblazer for women in rock whose passion and emotion were evident in every song she sang, she lived hard and died young. Janis performed at Monterey and Woodstock, palled around with other musical greats of the ‘60s and died of a heroin overdose while at the height of her artistic powers. Hers is a story of triumph and tragedy combined. In this biography, […]

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

Maria Longworth Storer: From Music and Art to Popes and Presidents by Constance J. Moore and Nancy M. Broermann

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As a native Cincinnatian, I am familiar with the name Longworth and that family’s connection to local history. Maria Longworth Storer was the founder of and one of the creators at the world renowned Rookwood Pottery. This new biography of Maria Longworth Storer opened my eyes not just to this formidable woman’s business acumen, artistic sensibility and philanthropy, which were already well known and documented, but also to her religious and political views and ambitions. Maria Longworth Storer came from a wealthy society family, but […]

We will do what others expect of us.

The Other Wes Moore: One Name Two Fates by Wes Moore

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CBR11 BINGO: True Story The premise of this book is interesting. How can two people, born a year apart in the same neighborhood turn out differently? At what point could the path split to lead to a successful and happy life for one and life in prison for the other? What happened along the way and can something be learned from that? As author Wes Moore is awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford, a man hunt is underway to arrest suspects wanted in […]

“The important thing about Margaret Wise Brown is…” (cbr11bingo – true story)

The Important Thing About Margaret Wise Brown by Mac Barnett

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“The important thing about Margaret Wise Brown is that she wrote books.” Mac Barnett, if you haven’t spent any time with him, is one of the most delightful children’s book authors of our time.  If I summed him up in one insignificant word, I’d say “funny” because it mostly captures the breadth of his work, from his silly picture books to Wimpy-Kid readalike chapter books. But in his biography of predecessor Margaret Wise Brown, he showcases a positively stunning simplicity of language, a thoughtful exploration […]



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