Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


The Faces Behind the Trials

Valley of Forgetting: Alzheimer’s Families and the Search for a Cure by Jennie Erin Smith

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Guess I’m back on the topic of Alzheimer’s Disease research again. Jennie Erin Smith’s  “Valley of Forgetting: Alzheimer’s Families and the Search for a Cure” is very tightly focused on one particular subset of familial Alzheimer’s being studied in Columbia. This particular form of Alzheimer’s is caused by a mutation in the gene presenilin-1 (PSEN1), E280A. A single amino acid change at position 280 leads to altered protein function. E280A is one of the most common causes of early onset familial Alzheimer’s, and the vast […]

It’s science, it’s fiction, but it’s not science fiction

Bellwether by Connie Willis

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Why is Connie Willis considered a science fiction writer? Is it just because she wrote about time travel that one time? I haven’t read a ton of her stuff (I did read the time travel one), but I don’t quite get it. This book is fine and fun, but not science fiction at all, even though the cover says “One of science fiction’s best writers.” Sandra is a scientist at a corporate-America type research institute that reminded me a little of Veridian Dynamics. She’s looking […]

Entangled but also Incomplete

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

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Bingo 17: The Wilds I’ll be honest: I was planning to use Entangled Life for the ‘flora’ square except that the author pointed out that fungi and some related things are not actually plants exactly; they are essentially their own thing. That’s actually a major part of the book, just how diverse fungi, lichens, and yeasts are. Anyways, a significant amount of the book is about fungi in their natural habitats (ie- outdoors) and just how little is known, and just how much could be […]

Probably a must-read for any humans who have sex (and some who don’t! and just like learning!)

Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski

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I actually first heard about this book from Alyssa Cole. When she visited the Tucson Festival of Books last year, I went to a panel she was on about consent being sexy, and she mentioned that she was reading it, and had learned a lot of things people assume about women’s sexuality was wrong. I put it on my TBR but just never got around to it, despite sexuality being one of my favorite things to read about. Luckily one of my IRL book club […]

An entertaining and informative look at hoarding.

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This book was completely fascinating. I know I say this a lot, but I really should have reviewed this book right after reading, because details don’t always stick around long enough for me to remember to write about them. This book in particular was chock full of so many interesting details I know it would be impossible for me to convey most of them even if I’d written this review ten seconds after finishing. And it’s been a month and a half. Randy O. Frost […]



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