Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Why True Crime Now?

Maniac: The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer by Harold Schechter

Murderabilia: A History of Crime in 100 Objects by Harold Schechter

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Maniac – 3.5 stars Decades before the modern school shooter burst onto the national stage, a man in Bath, Michigan blew up his local elementary school because he resented that his taxes had been increased to help build and maintain it. This is such a strange and shocking crime that it’s hard to understand why it’s also rather little known, but Schechter makes a compelling case for why it has mostly faded into the shadowy corners of history. He does a good job of recreating […]

“The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions.”

The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

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CBR18 Bingo: Right – As favorite to both James I and Charles II of England, the Duke of Buckingham served as the right hand of the king in helping govern the kingdom. When George Villiers caught the eye of James I of England, it was the start of a brilliant rise in politics and society for him. However, his close association with the increasingly unpopular crown would also lead to his downfall. I mostly think of James I as the king who was obsessed with witch-hunting, […]

“In the modern world, in short, you are your address.”

The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power by Deirdre Mask

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CBR18 Bingo: Refuge – People’s homes are meant to be their refuge, but this book makes the case that their street addresses also have a significant power over their lives. We usually think of our home addresses as the details we fill out to get mail, but the story of street names and house numbers, and what they say about us and the places we live, are much more complicated than you’d think. As a child I lived on Anna Road at the intersection with […]

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. […]

Murder on the New Frontier

Kingdom of Devils: A Tale of Murder in the Shadow of the American Revolution by Katherine Grandjean

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CBR18 Bingo: Map – We follow the Harp brothers’ rampage across maps of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi – and the brothers’ troubles started with land ownership disputes. On the heels of the American Revolution, Wiley and Micajah Harp went on a violent rampage across Tennessee and Kentucky, but while their crimes may have seemed inexplicable to their contemporaries, they may be tied to the dark realities of the newly promised American Dream. I had never heard of the story of the Harps before, and I knew […]



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