I can still vividly remember clicking onto Pajiba in March of 2009, to see Dustin’s post that AlabamaPink had died from leukemia. I know I gasped aloud and started reading thinking “no, no, no, no.” How could the death of this person I’d never met affect me so much? A young mother, whose witty, snarky comments had made me laugh was no longer on this Earth, and I was just sitting at a computer, expected to carry on the work of the day as usual. That might be the reason I’m doing what I’m doing what I’m doing for CBR. […]
Quick Questions with a Cannonballer: crystalclear
How many times have you participated in CBR? Has it changed the way you read? This is my 5th CBR, and it definitely has changed the way I read. I read more carefully and think of things I want to put in my reviews. On the other hand, reading a book I know I’m not going to review is a bit more relaxing! You work in the Youth Services department at a library and host toddler storytime? This sounds divine and adorable. What’s your favorite thing about working with these future readers? Seeing the children get excited about a book, even […]
Seeing how a hand carves out meaning with a pencil point lets us remember that the human touch is essential
Act of God by Jill Ciment
The Grownup by Gillian Flynn
The Vacationers by Emma Straub
Accident/A Day's News by Christa Wolf
Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford
And Now You can Go by Vendela Vida
Victory over Japan by Ellen Gilchrist
Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather
The Two of Them by Joanna Russ
Act of God – 3/5 Stars This is a funny and odd little book by a writer I don’t really know, but as I did a little research into has been writing and publishing for a while. This book is told from an ever-shifting third person limited perspective following different women who are responding to a crisis they all share. Kat and her twin sister Edith are older twins living in the rent-controlled apartment that belonged to their late mother. Their mother was a famous sex columnist/pioneer, and they have been collecting her different papers to either give to the […]
Help Support Cannonball Read
Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:
- Act of God by Jill Ciment
- The Grownup by Gillian Flynn
- The Vacationers by Emma Straub
- Accident/A Day's News by Christa Wolf
- Wigs on the Green by Nancy Mitford
- And Now You can Go by Vendela Vida
- Victory over Japan by Ellen Gilchrist
- Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather
- The Two of Them by Joanna Russ
We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.
You ought to care when women look at you that way.
Martin Eden by Jack London
Martin Eden is I think the longest novel Jack London wrote, and it’s the only one of his that is not an adventure tale. Plenty of the other of his writing has struck me as autobiographical, but this feels very much so. As another reviewer points out Martin Eden = M.E. = Me? Anyway, Martin Eden is a rough returned seaman who stumbles upon the daughter of a just outside the edge of upper crust educator after reading some poetry by Charles Swinburne. He has a visceral reaction to the poetry and an earnest reaction to this woman, who he […]
Help Support Cannonball Read
Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:
- Martin Eden by Jack London
We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.
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6/26/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:362 |
To Build or Not to…. Nah! Just to Build!
In Made by Maxine by Ruth Spiro
Builder Brothers: Big Plans by Jonathan and Drew Scott
In reverse alphabetical order, this review covers two different books about building, about trying and not giving up. In Made by Maxine by Ruth Spiro, we see our heroine trying to figure out how to make things bigger and better. When she gets a pet fish (who she thinks is waving at her), she builds it the biggest, funniest, craziest fish tank as the bowl she had for him was just too dull. And how proud both are of it! That is until the class pet parade is coming up and the tank is too big to move. And like […]
Help Support Cannonball Read
Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:
- In Made by Maxine by Ruth Spiro
- Builder Brothers: Big Plans by Jonathan and Drew Scott
We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.
6/26/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:246 | 
| Tags: brothers, dogs, Drew Scott, fish, Holly Hatam, Jonathan Scott, Kim Smith, Pets, Ruth Spiro, science, technology | Category: Children's, Comedy/Humor, Fiction | 0 Comments
Cats, as you know, are quite impervious to threats.
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
I absolutely devoured Doomsday Book a few weeks ago in a matter of days, which at 600 pages, was a relatively fast pace. This book, 500 pages, similar in its conceit took me longer in terms of days and a lot longer in terms of energy spent. I languished with this one at times, and while I sometimes run cold with Willis, I was hoping for a similar set of reactions to the previous novel of hers that I read. So the conceit here is pretty much the same, we return to the world of Doomsday Book and Fire Watch […]
Help Support Cannonball Read
Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:
- To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.
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6/26/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:361 |
A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us.
Summertime by JM Coetzee
This is a 2009 novel by Nobel Prize winning South African writer JM Coetzee, who has also won the Booker Prize twice for the novels Disgrace and The Life and Times of Michael K. This book, along with a handful of his others, was also nominated for the prize. I mention all of this because of the nature of this book. This book is written as a multi-voiced biographical research project taken on by a young, male, British biography after the recent death of Nobel Prize winning writer John Coetzee. So this kind of self-referential and self-effacing/deprecating sensibility plays throughout […]
Help Support Cannonball Read
Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:
- Summertime by JM Coetzee
We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.
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6/26/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:360 |
An homage to Granny, the world’s oldest known orca, who lived to be 105 years old!
Wild Orca: The Oldest, Wisest Whale in the World by Brenda Peterson
Wild Orca: The Oldest, Wisest Whale in the World has a little quirk that at first, I missed (looking back, it was pretty obvious). The Granny the young girl speaks of is not her Granny, but Granny the orca whale that is the matriarch of three different pods of whales called J, K and L. My first clue something was up was the fact Granny might not show up if she was busy, and since she was busy being 105 years-old, that might be the case. Brenda Peterson created a sweet book about the orca whales and the journey they […]
Help Support Cannonball Read
Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:
- Wild Orca: The Oldest, Wisest Whale in the World by Brenda Peterson
We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.
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6/26/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:244 | | Tags: Brenda Peterson, Mammals, Marine Life, nature, orca whales, science, Science & Nature, sea life, Wendell Minor, whales | Category: Children's, Fiction, Non-Fiction | 0 Comments
A sensory journey
How to Read a Book by Kwame Alexander’
I wanted to read Kwame Alexander’s picture book as I had just finished Crossover the Graphic Novel and wanted to experience another genre he had written. Sometimes an author excels at novels, sometimes picture books and a rare few can cross over into any format. I think Alexander is one that can easily flow into any format. The entire book is a piece of art. How to Read a Book might be more sophisticated than the traditional picture book crowd, but everyone will find something in it. Sometimes Melissa Sweet’s illustrations overpower the text due to the fact the text […]
Help Support Cannonball Read
Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:
- How to Read a Book by Kwame Alexander’
We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.
6/26/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:243 | | Tags: Kwame Alexander, Melissa Sweet, Stories in Verse | Category: Children's, Fiction | 0 Comments
Underwhelming, hopefully the Netflix show is better.
The Last Wish (The Witcher, #1) by Andzrej Sapkowski
I had this already on my TBR before they announced the Netflix adaptation, but it wasn’t a huge priority. I figured I would get to it eventually, along with all the other fantasy series I’ve got on there (which I feel like is all of them). But I did want to check it out when I heard about the show, because I do like to try when possible to have read at least the first couple of books in a series before watching an adaptation. I’m for sure going to be all over that show in the fall. And I […]
Help Support Cannonball Read
Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:
- The Last Wish (The Witcher, #1) by Andzrej Sapkowski
We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.
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6/26/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:66 | | Tags: #fantasy, Andrzej Sapkowski, audiobooks, narfna, Polish, short stories, the last wish, the witcher, translated | Category: Fantasy | 0 Comments