Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“You could call T. Rex the James Dean of dinosaurs: it lived fast and died young.”

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World by Steve Brusatte

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This, friends, is a dinosaur. I believe Pesto’s ancestors would be confused by him, but that’s the beauty of nature. It’s super weird and always doing unexpected things. This book manages to impart a lot of information about the evolution, time on earth, and extinction of (most) dinosaurs while at the same time being very readable and fun to consume. At one point the author uses the phrase “crow-sized weirdos with wings on their arms and legs” to describe a species of dinosaur that differed […]

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine!

Upworthy Good People: Stories From the Best of Humanity by Gabriel Reilich, Lucia Knell

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I’ve had this book for a few months and now felt like the exact right time to read it. It would make a lovely holiday gift for someone on your list or for yourself. Upworthy is a popular contributor on social media, featuring stories of kindness submitted by the public. This volume, published by National Geographic, is a compilation of those stories divided into six chapters. The stories are mostly short — from a paragraph to 2-3 pages — but every one of them is […]

“I want – I want – I want – was all that she could think about – but just what this real want was she did not know.”

Carson McCullers: A Life by Mary V. Dearborn

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CBR16 Bingo: Pride – McCullers and many people in her life were queer, one of the main struggles of her life was trying to come to terms with and better understand that queer identity, which also infused her writing. Carson McCullers is one of the most acclaimed authors of the Southern Gothic genre, but she was also a complicated woman with a messy personal life who constantly strove toward goals that, though she did not reach always reach them, created beautiful things along the way. […]

“Now did you think it all through? All these things will catch up to you…” (Double bingo)

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

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Nowhere Book Bingo: From a genre you’ve never read (true crime) CBR16 Bingo: Fiasco (Theranos was a massive fraud and a fiasco) I’ve owned this book since 2020 and am pretty sure I picked it up in an e-book sale because of the many Cannonball reviews I’ve read about it over the years. Not being particularly interested in the tech world or medical science, and certainly, not someone who reads a lot of business news, I didn’t really hear about this case as it was […]

The Strange, Fragile, Beautiful World

Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures by Katherine Rundell

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It’s estimated that there are around 7.8 millions animal species on the planet, many of which we know little about. Unfortunately, some may vanish before we can learn much more – which is a pity, because the variety of life on this planet is far more wondrous and strange than anything our imaginations could conjure up. This is a quiet and contemplative peek at the natural world in easy bite-sized installments. Each essay discusses an animal species which threatened in one way or another, covering […]

“a human looking glass: the light cast by fame bounced off her, and back on to those facing her” CBRBINGO – Golden

Q: A Voyage Around the Queen by Craig Brown

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Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the contents of my review. I’m so glad I took a chance on this one and requested the ARC. It was so much fun! It avoided literally everything that usually makes me avoid reading biographies: the tedious linear structure, the grandiloquence and navel-gazing that comes with writing about a much-lauded (or controversial) figure (and the author trying to “earn it”), and to be honest, the dull bits. Q: A Voyage Around the Queen is not […]



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