Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Part 10 It’s Going to Come Down to Semantics

Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy by Mary Roach

The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman

Back Story by David Mitchell

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

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Book 46: Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher Rough Review: 4 stars! It was already official but I’ll say it again – I’ll read anything by Kingfisher/Vernon. Her books are just comfort food to me at this point. Hemlock wasn’t my favourite (the Paladin books are what I discovered first and the world of the White Rat is my favourite Kingfisher place to be), but the concept was cool and intriguingly creepy, I love a neurodiverse-coded protagonist in her mid-30s who gets to have a […]

Science augmenting the human body

Replaceable You by Mary Roach

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Although it’s been a number of years since I’ve read a book by Mary Roach, I have read quite a few. Mary Roach writes non-fiction–digging into whatever topic seems to catch her fancy. Quite often this topic is at least a little bit taboo. She’s written a book about sex (Bonk), death (Stiff), and ghosts (Spook). When I was told her latest book was coming out, I immediately put a hold on it at the library. Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy (2025) is Roach’s latest […]

Why you should make friends with the rat in your house

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach

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My biggest problem with Fuzz is that the whole premise is kind of misleading; this is not really a book about animals breaking laws; it’s mentioned that elephants have killed people, rats and mice destroy agriculture (theft sort of) seagulls destroy the Easter flowers at St Peter’s in the Vatican, and deer cause a lot of traffic damage, but none of this seems to actually be the point. Fuzz is really a book about humans and animals not always getting along, basically there’s a lot […]

When animals attack

Fuzz by Mary Roach

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I’ve read a lot of books by Mary Roach, but I was unaware that Roach had published two new books since I’d last read anything by her. Somehow I’d missed both Grunt (2016) and Fuzz (2021) by Roach. I decided to remedy that and picked up Fuzz at the library. Even though it’s been years, I was hoping that I would still appreciate Roach’s unique investigatory writing style. Where her most memorable books involved big topics like: sex, death, and space, I wasn’t sure I would be as interested in: “when nature breaks […]

“We are irrational in our species-​specific devotions.”

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach

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It’s been a few years since I read a Mary Roach book, which seems like a terrible oversight. I generally love Roach’s books, even when the topic isn’t quite my jam (looking at you, Grunt). Its pretty simple to determine why – Mary Roach is hysterically funny. Ever since my first endeavor with her writing when I read Packing for Mars in 2015, I’ve been lowkey in love with her writing style, and am aware that I try to keep my own writing similarly lighthearted […]

not exaaaaactly what it says on the tin, but a good time none the less!

Fuzz by Mary Roach

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Honestly, Mary Roach could write a book about the paperwork filing systems for an auto dealership (my truest nightmare) and I would still roll up my sleeves and give it a go. Luckily, the topic  of animal criminals is NOT my nightmare, so I was eagerly anticipating another romp with my gal, Mary! As usual, I listened to this one, and if you are interested in picking it up I recommend doing the same as well! I almost always prefer a read-by-the-author piece of non-fic […]



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