Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Merry Christmas, here’s a book about cancer.

Daughter of Family G by Ami McKay

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At a recent Christmas party, a few friends did a ‘white elephant’ gift exchange, but with books. This was the book I walked away with, and I initially wasn’t sure how to feel about it. A memoir about hereditary cancer didn’t seem like something I’d normally get into over the holidays, but it came with rave reviews and the fact that it was penned by Ami McKay was enough to at least crack the first chapter. … and then I couldn’t put it down. McKay […]

DNA and Genes Broken Down

The Violinist's Thumb by Sam Kean

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Bingo Square: Science! I quite enjoyed Same Kean’s previous book, The Disappearing Spoon, so I am not entirely sure why it took me so long to get around to reading this – The Violinist’s Thumb was published in summer 2012 and I have a hardcover, so I’ve obviously had it for a while.  I will say, at least part of the blame goes to the fact that around 2014/2015 I transitioned to primarily reading Kindle books so it hasn’t helped diminish the stack of physical […]

Heredity and its Tangles

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I actually finished this book a few weeks ago, but I have been slow to pick up on the review. I think the main problem I’ve had to deal with here has been breadth. I generally try to pick up a thread or a narrative to follow for a review, but this book is just so broad and all-encompassing that I’ve had some real trouble picking just one thing to focus on and write about. To write a book that so thoroughly goes through the […]

Both an intimate history and a large-scale one

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For years, people have recommended Siddhartha Mukherjee’s book about cancer, The Emperor of all Maladies, to me. It’s sooooo good, they would say, not like you think a book about cancer would be. I don’t read a ton of nonfiction and a book about the history of cancer has always sounded incredibly grim, despite what anyone says, so I’ve always politely ignored their suggestions. After reading The Gene however, I’m actually considering picking it up. Mukherjee is an incredibly talented writer. The Gene delves into […]

A truly stunning sci-fi book for the ages

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Wow, this book. There are a few technical elements that initially justified me wanting to leave off the fifth star, but the sheer audacity of the story and the fact that I cannot stop thinking about it a month later make Seveneves one of my favorite books of the year, and certainly the most thought-provoking. Effortlessly checking off a list of “stuff I want in a sci-fi novel,” Seveneves is technical and speculative, extrapolating from cutting-edge current science to detail seemingly inevitable future technology. Equally […]

Who Wants to Live Forever?

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I first saw this book at a digital library last year and it seemed interesting. Recently, a friend of mine who is studying genetic counseling, recommended it and that bumped it up the queue. I knew very little of the premise before starting the book. I love that the author used a two-fold approach, writing the biographies of both Henrietta Lacks and her cells. It seems that the cells would easily be the star of the book but the Lacks family is incredibly interesting in […]



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