Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Enterprising Women on Shadowy Paths

Forbidden Fruit: The Secret, Scandalous History of Contraception and Abortion by Jessica Cale

The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective by Sara Lodge

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Forbidden Fruit: The Secret, Scandalous History of Contraception and Abortion by Jessica Cale – 3.5 stars CBR18 Bingo: You – As a woman living in the United States, the history and the laws surrounding contraception and abortion are very important to me. Though lawmakers today would have you believe that contraception and abortion are only recent inventions, in fact they have a long history. With the recent attacks on access to abortion and contraception in the United States, it is somewhat reassuring to learn about how […]

The Opposite of Idle Hands

With Her Own Hands: Women Weaving Their Stories by Nicole Nehrig

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CBR18 Bingo: Craft – This book is all about a women’s history of various textile crafts, including knitting, sewing, and embroidery. Throughout history in many cultures, art forms such as knitting, sewing, and embroidery were overlooked as women’s work, but they have also been a way for them to explore their intellectual capacities, seek economic independence, create community, process traumas, and convey messages of self-expression and political protest. I picked up crocheting some years ago, having taught myself through watching YouTube videos and reading articles. […]

My most surprising 5-star read of the year (also Cannonball, finally)

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

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Monthly Keyword 26: Bright Reading the Rainbow: Yellow CBR18 Bingo: Versus (The brave, tenacious and determined women vs the spineless and depraved serial killer Official plot synopsis: Tallahassee, 1978. Sorority president Pamela Schumacher wakes to a shocking scene of implausible violence and death, and is drawn into a mystifying crime that grips the nation for decades . . . In Seattle, Tina Cannon connects her best friend’s disappearance to the Tallahassee tragedy, and is convinced that a single man is responsible. Determined to find justice, […]

Women mind your business.

Courageous Cowgirls: Women Who Rode the Trails, Ran Ranches, and Raced in Rodeos by Sue Young and Katie Howerton

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Why yes. Yes, women should mind their own business. Especially if you are one of the women in this book that could and would barrel ride, cattle drive, steal back horses and guns, not to mention run chuck wagons and their own cattle businesses. In Courageous Cowgirls: Women Who Rode the Trails, Ran Ranches, and Raced in Rodeos you see women who did this and more (though stealing back your husband’s gun and your cattle a few hundred at time is impressive enough). This book […]

“Writing gives you the power to shape your own world when the real one hurts too much”

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

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Dark Corner Selection: March 2026 In a different version of 16th-century Spain, young Luzia Cortado works grudgingly as a scullery maid for the miserable and petty Doña Valentina. Luzia can use what she calls “small magics” to make her life easier. She can mend seams, multiply the groceries, unburn bread or reassemble broken things. She performs these little spells, learned from generations of her Jewish ancestors, by singing quietly. Luzia is a convert; she dutifully goes to Mass and hides any traces of her Jewish […]

Sure, But Who’s Really the Animal?

Animal by Lisa Taddeo

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Animal, by Lisa Taddeo, is a story about Joan. Joan will tell you herself that she is depraved. She will also remind you that she is a survivor and that she’s been judged not only by what she’s done to others, but by the things that have happened to her. For years, Joan’s rage was dormant, but now, after yet another violent act by a man in her life, her rage is growing. Joan is “hot” and “sexy” but is most flattered when someone simply […]



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