Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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allisonata

Avid reader in California who has lurked on Pajiba since Lindsay Lohan was part of the advertising. Interests range from white male literature to YA to history to graphic novels. Trying to decolonize my bookshelf and make sure women get at least equal time.

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allisonata's Reviews:

10 Reasons to Get Out of Bed in the Morning

Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad by Austin Kleon

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Within two minutes of waking up, I remember things I’d rather not: raging wildfires, hurricanes, desperate refugees, white nationalists, dead gray whales washing up onshore. Keep Going is a gift, an emotional stain remover, the pep talk  I didn’t know I needed in order to tamp down my despair and resume making art. Kleon knows the struggle is real. (Good luck staying loose and open when the outside world is invading every level of your consciousness!) Here is a person who shows his work on every page. He lays out ingenious ways to shift your mindset to make time and […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

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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5/28/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:28 |

Like a Sports Movie, In Reverse

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

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Football is the quintessential American sport. Two disciplined armies meet out on an open field. Highly trained men in uniform wallop the enemy, denying them ground. Our super soldiers bash their brains in—and sometimes break their necks—for our entertainment. And we cheer. Because who doesn’t love a proxy war? It’s tribal. Downright primal. Are you entertained?! *checks notes* Pardon. Apparently, baseball is America’s game. A sport that considers the no-hitter, a game in which absolutely nothing happens, as the pinnacle of the art. A sport that doesn’t honor plays but shames errors by counting them on the scoreboard for all […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

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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5/17/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:27 |

A Child’s Introduction to Pure Evil

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

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I live two blocks away from a stellar children’s book store. It’s a habit of mine to visit several times a month. I enjoy keeping tabs on what the kids are reading these days (graphic novels) and which titles have staying power. The pale blue cover of Number the Stars is always on display in the middle reader section. The fact that Lois Lowry, an author born in 1937, still has books occupying prime shelf space is an amazing feat—but not surprising to me, given I think about The Giver on a monthly basis. Number the Stars is a gentle […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

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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5/16/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:26 |

The Elements of Style: The Sequel

On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser

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A professor once threatened to boot me from his course for my crimes against the English language. My breezy essays were careless, inexact, perhaps even terrible. In his mercy Dr. Wright —a white-haired taskmaster in tweed jackets who frequently referenced “the war” (World War II)—gave me some advice: “Read Strunk and White every morning while eating your Wheaties.” If William Strunk and E.B. White’s The Elements of Style is the life vest keeping your head above water, William Zissner’s On Writing Well is the Coast Guard. Zissner saves your nonfiction from drowning in jargon and moribund nouns. He warns against […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

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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5/5/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:25 |

Life is Hard: A Sermon (with a soupçon of Fix-My-Husband)

I'm Fine and Neither Are You by Camille Pagán

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When I became too old for Sunday School, I had to learn to sit through sermons. At first I doodled hearts and flowers on the church bulletin. When I was too old for that, I turned my attention to analyzing the sermon. Depending on the preacher, I waited for Freudian slips, clichés, logical fallacies (“no true Scotsman”), and flights of magical thinking—flaws I found quite amusing. Yet the quickest way to lose my interest and respect was to traffic in the soggy old object lesson.  For the uninitiated, a pastor will tell a story—maybe from the news, maybe an anecdote, […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

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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4/14/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:24 |

Five Books on Screenwriting

Screenplay by Syd Field

Save the Cat by Blake Snyder

Tough Love Screenwriting by John Jarrell

Writing Screenplays that Sell by Michael Hauge

The Wall Will Tell You by Hampton Fancher

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If current trends hold, the future’s great American novels will be movies or TV series. Film fully exploits sight and sound as well as action and dialogue, and—unlike video games—it requires little time or effort to participate in a complete story. Hollywood would be helpless without the imagination and craft of the not-so-famous people who spin narratives and sparkling dialogue out of thin air. Many screenwriters are self-taught, some graduate from fancy film schools (*cough* USC *cough*), and some are also novelists (see: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ian McEwan). The vast majority never get a film career going, and those who […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

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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4/10/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:23 |

What’s Not to Love?

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

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My romantic expectations hover somewhere between The English Patient and Lust, Caution. (Love is brief and destroys lives. THE END.) Reading The Rosie Project, I found myself loving the dispassionate narrator in spite of myself. Don is bright, witty, and somewhere on the spectrum. Though he has no use for love—he’s busy with his successful career and finds satisfaction in his careful routine—he decides a wife could be a helpful addition to his overall situation. Imagine Mr. Spock going on OKCupid. The author has said that this story started off as a screenplay. It shows, in a good way. Despite […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

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.

Share the post "What’s Not to Love?"

4/6/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:18 |

The Original YA Novel: Classic for a Reason

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

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Everyone has a classic book that they’ve successfully managed to avoid. Jane Eyre is mine. After abusive Wuthering Heights left me fuming—f***ing emo Heathcliff—I binned all the Brontë sisters. I know now that I did wrong. Strong and sensitive Jane Eyre is the progenitoress of Anne of Green Gables, Meg Murray, Lyra Belacqua, and Katniss Everdeen. Unlike any English novel prior to 1847, the story happens *inside* a young woman’s mind, giving the reader direct access to her thoughts, emotions, and observations. (The book couldn’t exist otherwise: her actions are usually unremarkable and the world finds her inscrutable.) Brontë alchemizes […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

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.

Share the post "The Original YA Novel: Classic for a Reason"

3/9/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:17 |


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