Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Reconstruction Reimagined

The Conductors by Nicole Glover

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I remember reading something about Nicole Glover’s novel before it came out and thinking, “That sounds funs.”  It did not disappoint.  The story is set in the Reconstruction of the 1870’s but this is a reimagining of historical events with magic as an important element.  Before the war, Hetty Rhodes, a former slave, was a conductor on the Underground Railroad using magic, smarts, and luck to bring other slaves north to freedom. Now that the Civil War has ended, Hetty and her husband, Benjy, are […]

The Candice Millard Collection

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard

Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard

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I think it was the Reader Harder 2018 Challenge that called for reading a book by a female historian. It may also have been a twitter discussion about female historians but in either event I realized that of all the historical books I’ve read, very few have been written by women.  I wanted to remedy that.  Last year, or earlier this year as they run together, I read The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman.  Then someone here, maybe Jen K., recommended Paris 1919 by […]

A Necessary Slog

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This was not an easy book to get through. Complicated, dense and full of tiny print, I felt my eyes glazing over at least once every chapter. And let’s be clear-I like hard books. I like history. I like nonfiction. I’m used to people coming over to me while I’m reading my book and asking me what college class it’s for (as a side note, WHY ARE YOU INTERRUPTING ME WHILE I’M READING?!). But Eric Foner’s Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution 1863-1877 was really tough to […]



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