Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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About GentleRain

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Your jack of all trades eccentric. Knows a little about a lot and a lot about a little. Tends to mainly read non-fiction (history, true crime, old gossip, etc), SF/F, horror, graphic novels, "genre" books. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: GentleRain's Quick Questions interview.)

GentleRain's Reviews:

A Compelling Memoir of Sudden Marital Betrayal

Stangers by Belle Burden

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I make my return to CBR after a long absence due to wrapping up grad school, graduating, and recently starting a new job, so there have been a bunch of life transitions that left me both reading less and also having much less will to write reviews. I contemplated just waiting until January and trying again then, but I am countering my perfectionism and think it’s better to get back into the habit now instead of putting it off. This job is going to be […]

Urasawa’s The Best For A Reason — Master Keaton Showcases His Strengths

Master Keaton (Volume 7) by Naoki Urasawa

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One of my all time favorite series from one of my all time favorite authors — Master Keaton seems like it’s overlooked in favor of Urasawa’s other masterpieces, Monster and 20th Century Boys, but I think it offers a ton of thrills and heartfelt moments as well, and I’m excited to finally finish the series (five volumes to go!). Every moment spent looking at Urasawa’s cartooning is a delight and a privilege. Taichi Hiraga Keaton is a former SAS man now working as an insurance investigator, and […]

“When I have taken a sleeping pill (Mogadon) and woken at 3.30 or 5.30 a.m., peed, taken two paracetamols to boost the pill, and slept for two or three hours more, the dreams on which I then wake are a complex jumble of phenomena, often brightly coloured and, briefly, memorable. The person most often present in them is my mother.”

Ruling Passions by Tom Driberg

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I think that I got this due to seeing it quoted in a book about Guy Burgess, but I honestly don’t remember — Tom Driberg overlapped with so many people I’m interested in (Harold Nicolson and Chips Channon among them) that there are a variety of ways I could have stumbled across this. The forward informs us that this was not completed before Driberg died, although it does cover a lot of his life. I do think it shows at points throughout that this was […]

Really World Class Manga About the Power of Art

Blue Period (Volumes 1-6) by Tsubasa Yamaguchi

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I’d been circling this series for a long time, flipping through the first volume occasionally at the bookstore, and then getting intimidated by the length and also my concern that it seemed emotionally stressful, but I wanted to read it enough that I asked for the first six volume box set for Christmas. Well, I’m really glad that I did that, because what a treat! Blue Period is about a teenage boy, Yatora Yaguchi, who is seen by his parents and peers as a successful and […]

Very Strong Comics Anthology About Space Exploration

Ex.Mag: 100 Billion Stars (Volume 6) by Assorted

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Ex.Mag is a comics anthology series from Peow2, a great indie comics publisher operating out of Sweden but with a strong US presence at the small cons I go to. They put a lot of effort into their books, making them look really nice, and it shows here. Each volume of Ex.Mag has a different theme, and the theme for Volume 6 is “Space Exploration,” which if you have cast an eye over my reviews, is something that is right up my alley given my […]

“But I can’t do everything. I can’t save people from themselves.” — Fun, Spooky, Tense Campground Horror

How to Survive Camping: The Thing With No Shadow by Bonnie Quinn

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I picked this up at random at the bookstore as I meandered around the horror section, trying to find something to read that hit the right note. I was most drawn by the size of the edition and the nice touches they did — I’m a sucker for French flaps — and I was happy to find a mass market paperback sized book that can fit nicely in my backpack, versus the way most paperbacks are done in trade size nowadays, which makes them heavy. […]



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