Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


2,650 Miles of Wilderness

Trail of the Lost: The Relentless Search to Bring Home the Missing Hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail by Andrea Lankford

by Leave a Comment

There have been people attempting to thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail since it was first established, and where people congregate there is also always some amount of tragedy. But when three young man vanish from the trail in a three-year period, former park ranger Andrea Lankford gets fascinated by the search for them. For a person who one day wants to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail (after a lot of preparation, mind you), I find myself reading a lot about wilderness disaster and crime stories. Maybe […]

Boldly going where no potential underwear had gone before

Almost Underwear: How a Piece of Cloth Traveled from Kitty Hawk to the Moon and Mars by Jonathan Roth

by Leave a Comment

History, CBR17 Pie Chart Challenge Who knew that a piece of muslin cloth would have such an adventurous life? Reads as fiction, Almost Underwear: How a Piece of Cloth Traveled from Kitty Hawk to the Moon and Mars by Jonathan Roth is a  non-fiction story that is humorous and educational. Great for a classroom and a way to grab kids’ attention. After all, what kid doesn’t think underwear is amusing? When I first read the title I thought it was going to be about underwear. […]

Are you a Lucy Stoner?

One Girl's Voice : How Lucy Stone Helped Change the Law of the Land by Vivian Kirkfield and Rebecca Gibbon

by Leave a Comment

You have probably heard of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but have you heard about Lucy Stone? You might not have, but you should as she would influence Anthony and others to join the women’s rights movement and to keep up the good fight. The title One Girl’s Voice : How Lucy Stone Helped Change the Law of the Land by Vivian Kirkfield and illustrated by Rebecca Gibbon inspired me to google Women’s Right Activists to see if Stone’s name came up. Even […]

Let’s take this to the neck level

The Confessional by Paige Hender

by Leave a Comment

Recently I entered a “Grab a Galley” sweepstakes thingie and I have been honored to win a few that I really wanted. But one of them I was on the fence about putting my name in for. This was The Confessional by Paige Hender. But (and I know one shouldn’t judge a book by its cover) the cover was calling me. Which might not be a good thing since it is about vampires. Picture it: New Orleans, 1922. Cora Velasquez is a fairly newly turned […]

“They wear red bandannas knotted around their necks, as if their throats have already been cut.”

Rednecks by Taylor Brown

by Leave a Comment

When the coal miners of West Virginia attempt to unionize for better working conditions, the resulting conflict escalates close to the level of civil war – and a Lebanese-American doctor caught in between must choose where his allegiance lies. I’ve read about the Battle of Blair Mountain and the West Virginia Mine Wars before, but only in vague detail in high school history courses. Now, of course, I know a lot more – indeed, feel as though I saw it with my own eyes. Though […]

Shadow Histories of the United States

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey

The United States of Cryptids by J.W. Ocker

by Leave a Comment

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey – 3.25 stars For a country with a comparatively short written history, the United States has a great many ghosts, and the most compelling of those have their stories rooted deep in the places from which they’ve sprung up. This was a nice seasonal read which reminded me to look about me with a greater awareness of the many small histories that must cling to every bus station or convenience store I pass, even as […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo