Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Cheetos, Yes or No?

Ingredients, The Strange Chemistry of What We put in Us and on US by George Zaidan

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George Zaidan is a chemist, not a nutritionist. Faced with so many contradictory claims about foods and cosmetics, he brings his scientific experience to explore what is good or bad for us. If you’re looking for answers that confirm your beliefs: “Cheetos are poison” or “Cheetos are harmless” this is not your book. Rather this is a light science book that tries to be funny with lots of young boy humor (he likes to say “shit” a lot) that sets out to help the reader […]

Not for bedtime reading or the faint of heart or stomach

The Icepick Surgeon Murder Fraud Sabotage Piracy and Other Dastardly Deeds Perpetrated in the Name of Science by Sam Kean

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The Icepick Surgeon is not bedtime reading, unless you want really weird dreams. I enjoy popular science reading, especially when there’s some narrative, and this book is both those things. Basically it’s a review of mostly the past 275 years of medical history and the ugly things people have done and tried to justify in the name of science or helping people in the future. There’s a lot of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century piracy and grave robbing involved, a good bit of slavery and racial history, […]

What came from my picture book reading day

This is Joy by Shelley Johannes

Yoshi’s Big Swim: One Turtles Epic Journey Home by Mary Wagley Copp

Waiting on Mr. Sloth by Katy Hudson

Trucker Kid by Carol Gordon Ekster

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I was going to use This is Joy by Shelley Johannes as a recommended by a friend, but since I was slightly pushing it with my first, I figured having an author who I also have not meet, just interacted online was another push. However, the recommendation came from a person who said they had given some of their favorite books to a friend, so friends were involved. Anyway, this is a sweet story about a young girl who measures joy by the big and […]

The sequel is never as good as the original

The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex by Charles Darwin

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Back in 2020, I finished out the year by reviewing On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Since then, I’ve been trying to motivate myself to work my way through Darwin’s follow up: The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. Knowing that the ideas in Descent of Man were controversial, Darwin held off publishing until 12 years after Origin of Species. His thoughts on natural selection being well received, however, he felt comfortable proceeding to the next step, namely, “. […]

“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 […]

Blueberry Muffin Brains and lots of other stuff

The Body A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson

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I started The Body A Guide for Occupants about a year ago; I had kind of a pattern starting the year off with a science book of some sort. This year, I guess I’m also ending with one. This book is on the one hand pretty readable since the science is explained in some detail without getting too technical; my last biology class was well over a decade ago. On the other hand, it’s also incredibly dense, making it sort of hard to read for […]



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