Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Chris

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CBR18 Participant

Hi, it's me. Really, I hate these bio things. I like to read.

Chris's Reviews:

Must read about education

None of the Above: The Untold Story of the Altanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal, Corparate Greed, and Criminalization of Educators by Shani Robinson and Anna Simonton

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Disclaimer: I received a copy via a giveaway on Libirarything. This book about the Atlanta school test cheating scandal is really two books in one body and as such is not as good a book as it could be. Shani Robinson was a teacher at Dunbar Elementary in Atlanta. After she left the school, she was charged as one of the teachers who allegedly changed answers on standardized tests. Robinson plead not guilty, but sadly, lost in court. She is appealing. I hope she wins. […]

Out in April

Charged by Emily Bazelon

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Disclaimer: ARC via the publisher and Netgalley. The last time I did my civic duty of jury duty it was either the day after or day that Larry Krasner fired several lawyers for the DA’s office. It was an interesting day. I’m not sure why they didn’t just cancel us coming in. I tell you this so you know that I live in one of the cities that Bazelon writes about in her new book. According to the studies that Bazelon cites in her book, […]

To Believe or Not to Believe

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

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Set as a monologue given by Changez to a man he meets in Lahore – a man who may or may not be a spy – The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a book that not only examines a Pakistani man who is in America during 9-11 but also the question of the reliable or unreliable narrator. Changez’s story details his, perhaps, buying into the American dream or idea, his love for a typical, cliched American beauty, and his reaction to the terrorist attack 9-11. The question […]

Once upon a time in the USSR

The Girl from the Metropol Hotel by Ludmilla Petrushevskya

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Well, this does explain some of those wonderful stories that Petrushevskaya writes. Petrushevskaya’s memoir is about her early years – her family’s fall from grace, her birth, her life during war time. She lived as a half feral child for several years. But like in her stories, her use of language is beautiful and her comments on life searing. “We ate glue in secret because of the rumor that it was flavored with real cherries” (22) she writes describing how scare food was, especially for […]

I Blame TV

The Cadaver King and Country Dentist by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington

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You will never look at science the same way after reading this book. Even if you know that the shows like C.S.I. are science fairy tales what Balko and Carrington chronicle isn’t so much a miscarriage of justice but a deliberate hoodwinking by a group of men (the two in the title are the most important but hardly the only ones) who didn’t give a damn about the truth because those accused were poor, or black or the forgotten or all three. The book focuses […]

More time with McLevy

Shadow of the Serpent by David Ashton

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This Mclevy mystery occurs prior to the end of the BBC audio series. It is also more closely linked to Victorian politics than some of the other mysteries. While the focus is on Mclevy, and we get more of his backstory, which is a little different than you think. In many ways, Mclevy was made to saunter Leith. The other supporting characters from the series also make appearances, so of course we have the gossip of Jean Brash and Mclevy over coffee scenes. The bit […]



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