Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Fiat.Luxury's Reviews:

Convenience Store Woman

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

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This is a very Japanese book, and I enjoyed it all the more since I spent a good part of June feeding my children onigiri from Japanese convenience stores. Ever since she was a child, our protagonist Keiko Furakura has had trouble with social cues. Her part-time job at a convenience store gives her days a structure, and has for the past 18 years. She lives and breathes the convenience store, although she recognizes on some level that she is but a cog, she likes […]

How to Wash the Dishes

How To Wash The Dishes by Peter Miller

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This book is exactly what the title says. A little, well-written essay about how, exactly, to wash the dishes. It’s practical but also philosophical. What DO you do when you are serving dinner and you have an odd assortment of pots, pans, crystal glassware, silverware…? How do you manage the chaos? What do you do first? And, most relevantly for me, how on earth do you “clean as you go?” Miller answers all these questions while exploring the philosophical underpinnings of a dish washing routine, […]

Feminism social commentary disguised as murder mystery

Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeira

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This is a remarkable book. You should read it. Elena is a 60 something woman who suffers from Parkinson’s. The book, divided into three sections according to the times she must take her pill, tells the story of her and her daughter in flashbacks. At first, we know only that Elena is going on a difficult journey across Buenos Aires to find someone to help solve the must of her daughter’s death. Elena is convinced that she was actually murdered. As the story progresses, we […]

Monk and Robot #1 and #2

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers

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After reading several sobering, spooky, or downright heart-wrenching post-apocalypse stories, these two short novellas were a breath of fresh air. Do you want a story about a planet where humans avoided the apocalypse, barely, and have figured out how to give everyone what they need? Do you want a charming robot (who also has everything he needs) and is meeting humans for the first time in over 200 years? Do you want friendship and adventure with no anxiety? I ready these back to back and […]

Two short classics, both about rich jerks

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

The Pearl by John Steinbeck

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I’m not sure I can say much about these books that hasn’t already been said, but both were worthwhile reads. Both of these short classics are basically: don’t be a rich jerk. Scrooge, of course, learns in the end how not to be a rich jerk; the couple in The Pearl learns, or rather knows already, and uncovers the truth in a more holistic way, that wealth opens opportunities for evil, and it turns out that it’s if people are jerks who want to be […]

Tusks of Extinction

The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Naylor

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This is a well-crafted little novella. The consciousness of our protagonist, Damira, has been “uploaded” into a mammoth (!), which scientists have brought back from extinction. Damira had been an elephant activist, an anti-poaching conservationist. After she uploads her consciousness to a vaguely explained political lab, and after her subsequent death, and after the extinction of African elephants, scientists successfully bring back the mammoth. Unfortunately, the neo-mammoths don’t know how to behave like mammoths, on account of being previously extinct. Also, poachers still exist, and […]



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