Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search this Site

Beware those who promise that they have the answer to everything

Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest by Gregg Olsen

by Leave a Comment

Perfect reading for cold, dark nights, Starvation Heights is a fantastic helping of true crime that reads like a thriller that will have you constantly scurrying to the kitchen for sandwiches, as well as giving a wide berth to anyone who sets themselves up as a health guru. In 1911, two wealthy British sisters – of the type that my line of work tends to call the ‘worried well’ – travelled to the United States in order to undergo the ‘fasting cure’ in the sanitarium […]

Je t’aime

A Year in Paris by John Baxter

by Leave a Comment

Non-fiction book for Feb 2019 My Book Box. If anyone writes more beautifully about Paris than John Baxter, I’ve yet to read them. This book is supposedly about Paris throughout the year. It loosely follows this (there are some jumps in season, time, and place) as well as a brief history of the Revolution’s desire to change the calenderer. It is best to think of this book as part memoir of seasons of his life in Paris, as well as seasons of Paris. Each chapter […]

telling over showing: the novel

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

by 9 Comments

This novel is the literary embodiment of the kid who sat in the front row of your lecture course and had a long-winded comment to add to every. single. statement. made by your instructor. Not only do we go on a botanical exploration in the late 1700s- we go with CAPTAIN COOK! Not only do we supply pharmaceuticals to explorers- we sell to LEWIS AND CLARKE THEMSELVES! Not only did we happen upon the theory of evolution, but we BEAT DARWIN TO IT! These aren’t […]

Enduring a hundred humiliations, I can only cry in vain

Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, 1910-1940 by Him Mark Lai, Genny Lim, and Judy Yung

by 1 Comment

  As immigrants from China arrived by boat to San Francisco in the early 1900s, they were detained at Angel Island to await determination of their immigration application. Men and women were separated and held for weeks to months at a time while awaiting entry in to the United States or deportation back to China. The progressively stricter immigration laws during that time were aimed at keeping Chinese immigrants out of the country. With no contact with their families, no freedom to wander the island, […]

Winston Churchill was a real one

Hero of the Empire by Candice Millard

by Leave a Comment

  I should start this review by saying that I knew next to nothing about Winston Churchill before reading this book. I knew even less about the Boer War. That being said, Winston Churchill was a real badass. Other good descriptors would be, “arrogant”, “obnoxious”, “tenacious”, and “remarkably lucky”. He contained multitudes. This book profiles Churchill’s life during early war campaigns and through the end of the Boer War. He was interested in war not because of the righteousness of the cause but because he […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo