Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“There are three stages in scientific discovery. First, people deny that it is true, then they deny that it is important; finally they credit the wrong person.”

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

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When I was looking at the 2022 Read Harder Challenge for the first time and saw #9: “Read the book that’s been on your TBR the longest”, I knew without looking what that book would be, even though I haven’t looked at the beginning of my list in years. And that’s because I’ve been avoiding this book for as long as I’ve wanted to read it. Just one word for you: supervolcano. In Bryson’s signature breezy, humorous, yet intelligent style, he will explain to you […]

‘What happened to the frogs? We don’t hear them calling anymore.’

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

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This book is equal parts heartbreaking, infuriating, fascinating, and beautiful. It hits my sweet spot exactly between natural history, science, environmentalism, and travel writing (freaking Kolbert got to go to, off the top of my head, Australia, Germany, France, Peru, Panama, Iceland, Scotland, and Italy for this book, and I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting some). This genre is my catnip, and if I could trade lives with any author on the planet, well, it would probably be Michael Palin, actually, but Elizabeth Kolbert and Mary […]

Lady Trent takes another trip

The Tropic of Serpents by Marie Brennan

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The second book in The Memoirs of Lady Trent series, while The Tropic of Serpents didn’t quite reach the same giddy heights of adoration as A Natural History of Dragons had, that was mostly down to me having had no expectations with the first, and stratospheric ones with the second. The now widowed Isabella Trent is mother to a young son, but still possessing a naturalist’s thirst for more knowledge about dragons. Flying in the face of what polite Scirling society thinks she ought to […]

Fantastic start to what I’m sure will become my new obsession

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan

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An absolute delight from start to finish, as a huge fan of both the diaries of Victorian explorers and fantasy, A Natural History of Dragons felt perfectly tailored for me and I adored it so much I’ve already gone ahead and bought a bunch more of the series. Lady Trent has always been fascinated by dragons, but in her day a lady’s place is most definitely meant to be sitting prettily in a drawing room, making sure to not tax her thoughts with anything more […]

Cry Wolf

American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West by Nate Blakeslee

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My cousin recommended this book to me and, oh man, am I glad she did. I swear, I don’t think I have ever cried so hard reading a non-fiction book before. This is an examination and history of the reintroduction of wolves into the Yellowstone Valley. It’s a very broad look at the entirety of the re-introduction project  started in 1995 following through until around 2014 or so, as well as getting really deep into the case studies of the various wolf packs, focusing predominantly […]

I judged this book by its cover, and that was my mistake

The Boilerplate Rhino: Nature in the Eye of the Beholder by David Quammen

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CBR11bingo: The Collection Look at that awesome cover! It has a rhino on it, for heaven’s sake, which was enough for me to pick it up and look closer. I had been browsing books in the Quadrant Book Mart, one of my favorite little spots in Easton, PA, where I was visiting with my family two Christmases ago, when I spotted that intriguing image. Something about used book stores combined with travel makes me want to test airline luggage weight limits by stocking up on […]



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