The time has come to bring our Tenth Anniversary year to a close, what better excuse can there be for a Holiday Book Exchange? For the past several years we’ve had a completely voluntary Book Exchange and it is my pleasure to handle the organizational components for us again. It’s a lovely part of our community here at CBR and a great way to get to know a fellow Cannonballer a little bit better. It’s also a great excuse to share a little holiday cheer and do some spending through the Cannonball Read Buy Hole. (Remember, any funds generated through the Buy Hole are […]
Quick Questions with a Cannonballer – Leedock
by
You achieved your first Cannonball in CBR3 and came back to Cannonball again for CBR10 (Congrats!). What happened in the lost years in between? Were you still reading and writing? I signed up for CBR3 while riding on the high of having sent my kid off to kindergarten. Having free “me” time during the day, I decided to take the plunge. It was HARD. I let the reviews pile up and it was a struggle to get it completed. I thought about joining again eventually and when I realized the 10th anniversary was coming up, I just decided to go […]
Too many humans
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
My “award winner” bingo square belongs to Martha Wells’ murderbot opener “All Systems Red,” purchased from another CBR review, but I’m a bad person and can’t remember who to credit. Let’s just give the glory to Emmalita. Anyway, I was charmed by the plot description of an AI gone unexpectedly rogue who uses their newfound sentience to… laze about, hide their feelings, and binge watch a soap opera. My conciousness is neither unique nor hard-won, and I pretty much spend my life doing the same, honestly. How could I not buy this book with that synopsis? The execution was somewhat […]
Help Support Cannonball Read
Purchase All Systems Red by Martha Wells or any item from amazon via our link.
Funds raised are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name.
11/16/2018 | 's CBR10 Review No:62 | 
| Tags: Award Winner, cbr10bingo, martha wells | Category: Comedy/Humor, Fiction, Science Fiction | 0 Comments
A dream deferred might dry up like a raisin in the sun
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
I picked up A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry because it was on my list of 50 Books Every Woman Should Read Before she Turns 40. It was a quick read for me while I was on my epic backpacking trip this summer. A Raisin in the Sun is an award-winning play that debuted on Broadway in 1959. According to Wikipedia, it was unique at the time for having an almost all-black cast that performed for the primarily white, Broadway audiences. It also drew more black people to the traditionally, mostly white theater audiences. Even though I knew nothing about the plot of […]
Help Support Cannonball Read
Purchase A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry or any item from amazon via our link.
Funds raised are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name.
Share the post "A dream deferred might dry up like a raisin in the sun"
11/15/2018 | 's CBR10 Review No:40 |
Bad head-space, not a bad space-book
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
I am way late to this party, and now that I’ve arrived, I’m not sure it was worth the trip. I know Cannonballers love this book, and it was given to me by my dad, former Cannonballer sabian30, after he read it and liked it. But I didn’t love it like I wanted to. The concept is interesting: ancillaries are sprawling, brilliant, multi-bodied beings that serve the Lord of the Radch. Our main character is a ship as well as an army of genetically enhanced, easily replaceable bodyguards and soldiers, all with one hivemind attuned to her captain and crew. […]
Help Support Cannonball Read
Purchase Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie or any item from amazon via our link.
Funds raised are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name.
Be careful what you wish for…
The Stepsister's Tale by Tracy Barrett
This is a Cinderella tale told from the point of view of one of the ‘ugly’ stepsisters. In the original story, Cinderella’s father married and brought his new wife and stepdaughters to his home. The stepsisters were spoiled and enjoyed privileges that Cinderella did not, and lived a life of leisure. Not so in this version. Here, the Jane and Maude Montjoy are the sisters. They live in a dilapidated house and do all of the chores to try to survive. Their mother is set on them being ‘ladies’ like she was raised, despite them needing to do the work […]
Help Support Cannonball Read
Purchase The Stepsister's Tale by Tracy Barrett or any item from amazon via our link.
Funds raised are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name.
11/15/2018 | 's CBR10 Review No:49 | | Tags: #CBR10, cinderella, Fairy Tales, Tracy Barrett | Category: Fiction, Young Adult | 0 Comments
2nd Bingo!
Good Omens: The Nice & Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
In preparation for the upcoming new Amazon series, I decided to reread “Good Omens.” It’s probably been about a decade since I picked this up the first time, and while there were many parts that I thoroughly re-enjoyed, there were other parts that let me down. And not because it’s bad, but just because we’re getting farther and farther away from many of the contemporary nuances and details that were hilarious in the 2000s. Sadly, as time marches on, much of the ironic nuance in the jokes and satire don’t make sense simply because we’re missing the contemporary background. Published […]
Help Support Cannonball Read
Purchase Good Omens: The Nice & Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman or any item from amazon via our link.
Funds raised are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name.
11/15/2018 | 's CBR10 Review No:26 | | Tags: apocalypse, brain candy, cbr10bingo, doomsday, good omens, Neil Gaiman, Satire, Terry Pratchett | Category: Fantasy | 0 Comments
Eddie Izzard is Just as Delightful in Text
Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens by Eddie Izzard
I have loved Eddie Izzard since Definite Article, and Dress to Kill is my favorite stand-up special of all time. One could say that isn’t saying much since I don’t really listen to or watch a lot of stand-up, but that just means it’s one of the rare specials that actually made me enjoy stand-up, right up there with Paul F. Tompkins’ Laboring Under Delusions and anything Mitch Hedberg. So of course I wasn’t surprised that Izzard’s autobiography is just as delightful as his stand-up. Hell, it even includes little bit from his stand-up specials, especially Dress to Kill! Izzard’s […]
Help Support Cannonball Read
Purchase Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens by Eddie Izzard or any item from amazon via our link.
Funds raised are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name.
11/15/2018 | 's CBR10 Review No:46 |
Gonna buy it and reread it
Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital by Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove
Lord all mighty this was a dense one. I guess I’ve gotten accustomed to novelized non-fiction a la Erik Larsen because I did not anticipate the depths into which I was diving. Reading this is like reading a textbook. There’s a lot to absorb and my reading time was curtailed by its library due date (and the increasing load of loans I’ve been accumulating). It’s an incredible work of research and I’m going to reread it, it’s just a lot. Literally 25% of the book is endnotes, like that much a lot. I live smack in the heart of gentrifying […]
Help Support Cannonball Read
Purchase Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital by Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove or any item from amazon via our link.
Funds raised are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name.
11/15/2018 | 's CBR10 Review No:125 |
The silence depressed me. It wasn’t the silence of silence. It was my own silence.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Birthday/cbr10bingo Sylvia Plath was born Oct. 27, 1932. Bingo #2 Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar is a semi-autobiographical novel about a young woman’s experience of depression and mental illness, her time in an institution and her slow journey back to wellness. It is also a commentary on the suffocating life of a young woman who wants more than life seems to offer her because of her class and gender. The Bell Jar was published in the UK in 1963, just before Plath committed suicide. The Bell Jar is the story of Esther Greenwood as told by Esther. She is a […]
Help Support Cannonball Read
Purchase The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath or any item from amazon via our link.
Funds raised are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name.
Share the post "The silence depressed me. It wasn’t the silence of silence. It was my own silence."
11/15/2018 | 's CBR10 Review No:45 | | Tags: #CBR10, Birthday!, cbr10bingo, ElCicco, Fiction, Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar | Category: Uncategorized | 0 Comments