Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Ooo Heaven is a place on Earth

A People's History of Heaven by Mathangi Subramanian

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No, really.  Heaven is a thirty-year-old slum tucked away in Bangalore. In Heaven, there is a group of girls.  Deepu, an indefatigable blind dancer; Joy, the youngest, a transgender Christian convert; Padma, a recently arrived migrant who carries the weight of her family on her shoulders; Banu, the guerilla artist; Rukshana, a queer Muslim. The story is a little meandering, it’s a little lyrical.  The girls are allowed to drive the plot, so we see their internal struggles as much as their external.  We see […]

Man, Magic, and the Machine

The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday by Saad Hossain

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This is a delightful novella.  It’s fresh and weird and engaging, a sci-fi-fantasy set in near-future Kathmandu.  An interesting mix of traditional magic elements (djinn!  I love djinn.) with traditional sci-fi elements (vaguely creepy AI!), and pretty bonkers…but weirdly lovable?…characters.  The themes and the narrative are brutal, whimsical, funny, and sobering, sometimes all at once.  This was riiiiight up my alley, and I recommend it to anyone looking to mix it up a little. Melek Ahmar, the Lord of Mars, the Red King, the Lord […]

Kids and grown-ups are different! (Why is that so hard for me to remember? )

How to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen by Joanna Faber

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I haven’t read a lot of parenting books–I’d rather read fiction–but I had a 4-month solo parenting stint due to COVID, and there was a point in the middle of that stint, after a long, loud, frustrating day, where I thought, surely, there must be a better way.  I Googled, and bought this book. This book is a winner.  It’s easy to read, the anecdotes are illustrative and snappy, and the principles are repeated so your foggy parent-brain can remember them, but not repeated so […]

Catch and Kill

Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow

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This is a great book.  Farrow takes what could be–what is, in fact–a very tricky story with lies, leads, traps, double-crosses, big reputations and big egos, and makes it enjoyable to read, for 400 pages…well, enjoyable except that you’re reading about truly despicable and gross people, and their whole gross conspiracy of predators and enablers. If you live in society, you’ve heard about Harvey Weinstein.  This book documents Ronan Farrow’s pursuit of the Weinstein story, and his refusal to give up.  He was disheartened but […]

Full of Grace

Becoming by Michelle Obama

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I often find very popular books…well, underwhelming.  Why did so many people like this book over that book?  Why does [name of a very popular book] still have 5 stars on Amazon/Goodreads, when it’s so trite/boring/unrealistic/eye-rolly?   What made Oprah pick [one book] over the similar but superior [other book]?  Etc, etc.  I’m sure many of you Cannonballers can relate. However, I am DELIGHTED that this book has library waiting lists and 5 star ratings across the board.  I hope everyone reads it, and comes away […]

Willa & Hesper

Willa & Hesper by Amy Feltman

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I picked this up as part of this year’s BookRiot Read Harder challenge “A Debut Novel by a Queer Author.”  I picked up the Kindle Sample and then got it from the library because I knew I had to finish it.  Willa and Hesper fall in love and then break up (don’t worry, that’s not a spoiler), and then they have to deal with it: the breakup, their families, their ancestry, their traumas.  They each rebound to Europe: Willa on a Jewish heritage tour of […]



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