Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Let’s Talk About Sex

Bonk by Mary Roach

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Mary Roach is considered the world’s funniest science writer, and this work is no exception to that. She mixes the scientific lingo with the layman’s terms with such ease that the reader is eased into whatever niche topic Ms. Roach is discussing. We all become scientists for a moment while reading Mary Roach. Bonk is no different from her other works in this sense, and if you’ve read other Mary Roach this book and its subject should not be surprising.  In fact, I found it […]

Hard to digest through no fault of the book

Gulp by Mary Roach

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I’m a luddite where books are concerned. I have a kindle solely because the spousalthorp got lovingly irritated with me on our Hawaii honeymoon when I read all the books I had packed and we had to go the furthest away from our hotel on the island to the only bookstore, and THEN pack all the books to take with us. They took up a suitcase on their own. I begrudginly concede he may have had a point. That said, I accidentally bought Gulp on […]

cbr12bingo – Reader’s Choice (standing in for Book Club)

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach

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It’s my first “bingo”- the rightmost column! I wanted to replace Book Club because I jumped the gun and read all of our CannonBookClub options earlier this year. Oops! That’s what I get for getting impatient; the choices for #thefutureisqueer would have knocked out multiple squares! I also started (and in some cases, finished) a few series. Oh well, *shooting star* the more you know. Speaking of “the more you know”, I accidentally came into this one over-prepared. Oops again! I’m pretty far into the […]

Why not distract yourself from the workings of the world with the workings of your own insides?

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach

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…or more frequently, the misfiring insides of others. Fistulated fellows? Check. Elvis and his mega-colon? Check. Taste-testing pet food, pus, rancid oil, and/or the saliva of others? All yours and more to spare! I like to, for the most-part, enjoy nonfiction via audio books. Frequently, I wander around the house doing whatever needs doing while playing books through a speaker. While I whole-heartedly recommend Gulp, I do NOT recommend subjecting innocent bystanders (sorry, husband!) to the dirty work within. Not everything here is gross. And really, […]

Visceral Glory

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach

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Gulp is Mary Roach’s pop-science journey into the human (and occasionally non-human) digestive track, beginning with all things mouth related (saliva, chewing) and ending up exactly where you’d suspect, although with angles you I didn’t anticipate (Elvis’ megacolon; drug smuggling). I’ve previously read Stiff, Roach’s look at the afterlife of cadavers, and although I enjoyed Gulp, I liked Stiff more.  Because it has been some time since I read Stiff, I can’t remember exactly what is less enticing about Gulp, but I suspect it may […]



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