Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site

blauracke

Loves books.

CBR11 participantCBR11 Levels

blauracke's Reviews:

It Is What It Is

All That I Have by Castle Freeman Jr.

by Leave a Comment

In rural Vermont, Sheriff Wing has to deal with a break-in at a luxury home owned by Russians, a local small-time criminal who is in big trouble, and a deputy that wants to usurp his position because he feels that time has passed his boss by. It sounds like a pretty ordinary mystery novel but it’s not, because it turns out that the mystery is not much of one, and the book is not really even about that. It’s about the sheriff, through whose eyes we see the world, and whom we get to know intimately. He is laid-back 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.

Share the post "It Is What It Is"

7/19/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:31 |

Change Waits for No Man

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

by 1 Comment

This is the story of Okonkwo, a member of the Ibo people in the lower Niger delta in pre-colonial Nigeria. He is the head of his family which consists of three wives and numerous children, a highly respected leader and warrior in his village, and a staunch supporter of the old ways and traditions. When Christian missionaries arrive, everything he knows and understands is threatened. To have the impact of European colonialism described from the perspective of the people being colonised is incredibly powerful and also depressing because there was really nothing they could have done to arm themselves 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.

Share the post "Change Waits for No Man"

7/15/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:30 |

Born Under an Evil Star

Mademoiselle de Scudéri by E.T.A. Hoffmann

by Leave a Comment

In 1680, 73-year-old Mademoiselle de Scudéri is a respected poet at the court of Louis XIV in Paris. She inadvertently becomes involved in solving a series of murders and robberies that have mostly wealthy gentlemen as their targets who are on their way to their mistresses with expensive jewellery.  These crimes have plagued the city for some time and the authorities are anxious to solve them. First published in 1819, this is generally acknowledged as the first German crime fiction story, with the Mademoiselle at its centre as the amateur detective, although her forte is neither deduction nor investigation, but […]

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 "Born Under an Evil Star"

7/13/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:29 |

“… it will never do for you to go and starve yourself to death.”

Hunger by Knut Hamsun

by Leave a Comment

In the late 19th century, a struggling writer wanders the streets of the city of Christiania, hungry and destitute, while clinging to dreams of greatness. I have seen many comparisons of Hunger to Crime and Punishment and I can see the similarities but where Dostoevsky’s book moved me immensely when I read it for the first time, Hunger left me as cold as a stone, and where I could feel Raskolnikov’s agony as if it were a living entity, I was mostly annoyed at Hamsun’s protagonist. He is deeply concerned with upholding the image he has of himself and with […]

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 "“… it will never do for you to go and starve yourself to death.”"

7/12/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:28 |

Connection Pending

Day In Day Out by Terézia Mora

by Leave a Comment

Abel Nema, a refugee from a not specified Balkan country and a linguistic genius, is found almost beaten to death and hanging by his feet in a park in an also not specified European city. How exactly he ended up there is explored over the course of the story. There are so many interesting ideas in this book but all have at their heart the theme of human connection and how it is achieved. Abel, for instance, learns to speak ten languages perfectly and without an accent but it doesn’t help him connect with people, quite the contrary, the more […]

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 "Connection Pending"

7/10/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:27 |

To the Stars!

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space by Carl Sagan

by Leave a Comment

In this book, Carl Sagan gives at first an overview of the then current state of the exploration of the Solar System (as it was in the mid-1990s when the book was published), and then debates the question whether we should try to send humans to Mars or not as a first stage of further exploring space with people rather than robots. This leads to speculation not only on the future of space travel and its vital importance, but also on the future of humankind as a whole. I absolutely love astronomy because learning about the sky that humans have […]

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 "To the Stars!"

7/5/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:26 |

Illusion Lost

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone by Tennessee Williams

by Leave a Comment

A wealthy middle-aged woman that abandoned her acting career because she became too old to play the parts she wanted to play begins an affair with a young gigolo while struggling with the loss of her beauty and the recent death of her husband. This is quintessential Tennessee Williams; for anyone familiar with his plays, the style and themes in this rare novel of his are instantly recognisable. He has a specific way of creating characters, especially ones that hide their true selves behind an image they created and that they wear like a second skin, and cutting them down […]

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 "Illusion Lost"

7/2/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:25 |

And I Saw a Pale Horse

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman

by Leave a Comment

This is an expansive look especially at France in the 14th century, but in lesser detail also at England and the rest of Europe. Tuchman examines all aspects of medieval life, be it customs, romance, chivalry, or the living conditions of the poorest and the richest, simply everything one could ever want to know about this particular period in history, which was an absurdly terrible time indeed. In the 14th century, the first harbingers of the Little Ice Age caused periods of famine, the Hundred Years’ War started to devastate the land, the Black Death covered the whole continent in […]

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 "And I Saw a Pale Horse"

6/30/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:24 |


Follow CBR on Instagram

Shop on Amazon and Support CBR

Buy Original Cannonballer Prisco's book and help CBR!

Ad Partner