Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Some might call her the first film maker ever, but for certain the first woman.

Lights! Camera! Alice!: The Thrilling True Adventures of the First Woman Filmmaker by Mara Rockliff

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Lights! Camera! Alice!: The Thrilling True Adventures of the First Woman Filmmaker by Mara Rockliff and Simona Ciraolo hit on the highlights of Guy’s life. The set up is like a classic movie with their title cards (the afterwards will let you know that they are titles of Guy’s films). The focus, while on Guy covers a lot of areas that the adult (graphic novel) biography I read didn’t seem to. Positive and upbeat. The illustrations, while fun and clever, might have been “too cute” […]

The Dark Corners of the Past

Great Scandals of the Victorians by Debbie Blake

Public Faces, Secret Lives by Wendy L. Rouse

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Great Scandals of the Victorians: Disreputable Stories from the Royal Court to the Stage – 3.5 stars For all that Victorians had a reputation for being straitlaced, they had their fair share of scandals – and some of them ended up having major effects on contemporary society, sometimes even driving forth social changes which still affect us today. I love a good gossip session about people I’ve never met, which is why history is one of my favorite subjects. In this book, we learn about […]

“It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it.”

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

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After graduating from college, Chris McCandless vanished from his former life and took to the road. The next that his family heard about him was several years later, when he was discovered to have starved to death in the remote Alaskan wilderness. I love Krakauer’s writing, astute and lyrical, and the way he tells this story makes me feel like I’m peering into the abyss of mortality he describes encountering on his ascent of Devils Thumb. Into Thin Air is one of my favorite books […]

Like the Oregon Trail Game with a Bodice Ripping Mod

Emerald Fire by Julia Grice

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Fleeing her plantation home to escape her lecherous cousin, Emerald ends up joining a wagon train headed to California as a mother’s helper. She’s drawn to their guide Mace, but has a long way to go before she can reach her happy ending. More a pioneer adventure than a true romance, we follow Emerald on her way west as the train tangles with illness and injury, hostile Native Americans and a pair of bank robbers. We encounter all kinds of curious characters both on and […]

Man makes our art story

Ancestory: The Mystery and Majesty of Ancient Cave Art by Hannah Salyer

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Though currently available, I read via an online reader copy. And I have rounded up my rating to a 4 from a 3.5. This is because there was some repetition), or a few “bumps” while I was reading. Of course, each reader will take something different from it.  And as said, I read via online, so I am not sure the exact dimensions, but I am assuming it is a larger than usual picture book.  But regardless,  Ancestory: The Mystery and Majesty of Ancient Cave […]

Racing Time

Lexington: The Extraordinary Life and Turbulent Times of America's Legendary Racehorse by Kim Wickens

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A horse called Darley was born on a farm in Kentucky a decade before the Civil War; under the name Lexington, he broke the world record for speed and left an imprint on the world of American horse racing that persists to this very day. I was never a horse girl, but in elementary school I had a phase in which I read a great deal of Marguerite Henry and Walter Farley. As such, I’ve probably seen about four horses close up throughout my life, […]



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