Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Dying’s not so bad. At least I won’t have to answer the telephone.

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast

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Bingo: New (new author to me) This graphic novel is Roz Chast’s memoir about her parents’ aging and eventual death. It’s a dark topic! But the book itself is highly entertaining. Chast’s parents, George and Elizabeth, lived their entire lives in Brooklyn. Chast was born fairly late into their marriage, after they suffered a stillbirth several years before her birth. One day, when her parents were in their 80s, her mother fell. This was the beginning of a downward slope in health for both of […]

2 Misses, and One Five Star Hit

Lulu Faces Loss & Finds Encouragement by Danica Thurber

Forever in Our Hearts by Kristina Andrade

Home in Heaven  by Stefan Waidelich

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I don’t know about all you, my fellow Cannonballers, but I’m the go-to book person in most of my circles. I would be very upset if this were not true, in fact.  Especially when it comes to picture books, which are what I’m both most educated in and most passionate about. But this means, that a lot of times I get asked about “What are good books about X hard thing?” and – while I almost always have a few essential recommendations for every given […]

A Composition of Decomposition

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: & Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

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Last time you, me, and the other Caitlin who spells her name correctly met up, I was asking about what you wanted to happen to your body when you died. Remember?  A good time was had by all. This time I am not going to ask what you want to happen, because while Smoke Gets in Your Eyes does talk about what one can choose for their post-mortem adventures, it also gives a breakdown (cymbal crash) of what happens to a human body when it stops being […]

“We can’t make death fun, but we can make learning about it fun. Death is science and history, art and literature. It bridges every culture and unites the whole of humanity.”

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals about Death by Caitlin Doughty

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I’ve read Caitlin Doughty’s previous books Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and From Here to Eternity and enjoyed them both immensely. I find Doughty’s manner of discussing death and dying and all that comes after reassuring, practical, and informative with just the right amount of humor and levity. When Ale brought to my attention that she had a new book out I knew I’d be reading it no matter what. When I put it on my to read list I had no idea what Will […]

Let’s Talk About Death, Bay-Bee

From Here to Eternity - Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty

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Do you have a plan for what happens when you die? What do you want to happen to your mortal remains? My husband wants his ashes packed into a cannon and used to set off a controlled avalanche- preferably over a miniature village- so that he can “take something out with [him]” when he goes. I am not sold entirely on my end yet; I had an idea involving fireworks before I started reading this delightful book, but now the door has been opened to […]

It won’t be long

Dying: A Memoir by Cory Taylor

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I picked up Dying: A Memoir by Cory Taylor shortly after my own cancer diagnosis over a year ago, and despite its scant 130-odd pages, it’s taken me until now to finish it. This is not to say that it is bad or even boring; on the contrary, it is a thoughtful work of flowing prose. Perhaps, though, I ought to have held off picking it up until my own experiences had faded a little. On the other hand, I unwittingly stumbled upon a unique […]



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