Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Trees move slowly. Sometimes books about trees do, also.

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate by Peter Wohlleben

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Peter Wohlleben is a man to be admired. Having graduated from a forestry school in Germany, he worked for the forestry commission for more than 20 years but eventually became disillusioned by the common use of what he considered to be damaging forestry practices. He began applying his own ideas as manager of an ecologically-friendly beech forest, and he shares his knowledge and passion in the multiple books he’s written about trees. The Hidden Life of Trees, a New York Times bestseller, aims to make trees […]

My mind is blown, and not because I’ve been sampling magic mushrooms

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make our Worlds, Change our Minds, and Shape our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake

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I have read many books on science and natural history, but few have made me stop reading every few pages to look up and declare to whomever is within hearing distance (currently, my husband and cats, because we’re in a pandemic), “This is fascinating.” I don’t care if you’ve never read a book about nature in all your previous existence. Entangled Life will ensorcel you with tales of carnivorous mushrooms, zombie fungi, acid trips, and superhero microorganisms that could end up saving the planet. If […]

Old Wives Tales Vs. Science

Expect Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong, and What You Really Need to Know by Emily Oster

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After much wondering if it was even possible, hubby and I are expecting. And while I’d done quite a bit of research on the process and probability of conception, I’d done virtually no research on what to do after you managed to succeed (mostly because I didn’t think we would). Days after my second positive test, I stared at the coffee pot, vaguely remembering my pregnant friends abstaining from caffeine, fish, deli meats and a hoard of other things. I stood in a first-trimester fatigue […]

I don’t like science, I don’t like nonfiction, but I loooove Georgia Hardstark

The Disappearing Spoon and Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean

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Georgia from My Favorite Murder recommended Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time, which is one of my favorite books in my CBR history. So when she recommended a book about the history of the periodic table of the elements, I decided to check it out despite its non-fictionness. I was expecting stories that just happened to tie in elements, but this is straight up history. Who discovered which elements, how they did it, how those elements are used today, who won which Nobel Prize, and so […]

A pinch of this and a pinch of that and a whole lotta potatos!

Chef Yasmina and the Potato Panic by Wauter Mannaert

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Chef Yasmina and the Potato Panic by Wauter Mannaert had a lot of potential. It started with the cover (I know do not judge a book by its cover, but I was hoping this would be a fun romp about cooking, friendship and for some odd reason, a mystery). However, I never completely found it in the actual story. I was weary at first as they first few pages had no text. Which is okay for some things, like a picture book. But when you have […]

The Only Winner Here is Corn.

The Scientist and The Spy by Mara Hvistendahl

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On one hand, I enjoyed reading The Scientist and the Spy, really. Mara Hvistendahl has given us a really compelling account of economic espionage. But Christ, this book is a sticky one. It covers multiple topics I’m interested in: genetics, agriculture, international relations and intellectual property—and political shit-storms. But it also makes me want to bang my head against the wall while crying out ‘everyone’s a pack of arseholes’ because that was basically the only conclusion I could come to. But with a story this […]



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