Cannonball Read 12

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site

> FAQ Home
> Tag: pandemic

Maybe save this one for 2021.

Pandemic by Sonia Shah

by 5 Comments

I love reading about infectious diseases, I really do. And I love reading about the history of public health, particularly in relation to infectious diseases and pandemics. But was it wise to read a book about pandemics, and the weaknesses in our public health infrastructure, at this particular moment in time? Perhaps not! It’s impossible to review this book without acknowledging the very weird time we are in, and the fact that Sonia Shah, like so many other infectious disease journalists and experts around the […]

Mesmerizing, magical, terrifying

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

by 1 Comment

Although it seems a bit trite to recommend Station Eleven on this site (I know it was the latest book club choice- I’m late to the party!) and in a pandemic generally (I feel like its been on every ‘what to read in a pandemic’ book list), I am aggressively recommending this book to anyone looking for a recommendation (and even occasionally to those who aren’t- its that good). For anyone who has somehow missed the hype, Station Eleven is about a pandemic, the fictional […]

Bodies Hit The Floor

Killing Williamsburg by Bradley Spinelli

by Leave a Comment

A big ol’ content warning: this book is about suicide. Suicide is on almost every page. The book itself includes graphic depictions of suicide and bodies in a post-mortem state as a result of suicide. Though I won’t go into detail myself, there’s no way to avoid talking about suicide in this review. If you are triggered by suicide or have a history with suicidal ideation, please skip both this book and this review. … Along with Colson Whitehead’s Zone One, this is another New York […]

“What I mean to say is, the more you remember, the more you’ve lost.”

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

by Leave a Comment

I thought I remembered much more of Station Eleven than I did; I had remembered it as a story of Kirsten and the Traveling Symphony and several scrapes with some religious extremists. I remembered Jeevan in the fortress of his brother’s tower. I remembered skulking through rotting schools and all-encompassing trees. What strikes me now is how immediately the sense of dread starts to kick in; there is no slow build; a statement about everything falling to pieces kicks in within the first chapter. Maybe […]

The most beautiful book about the end of the world you’ll ever read

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

by Leave a Comment

When I read that Station Eleven would be a book club read, I decided to borrow it from my local library. I wasn’t familiar with it, but I knew that it came recommended by many in the CBR community. I had no idea this book would be so beautiful and so moving, the first book I’ve read in 2020 that I truly love. Station Eleven is the story of our world before and after its collapse as the result of a pandemic so devestating that […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo
  3. Google Pay