Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time
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About Halbs

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I'm left-handed! (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Halbs's Quick Questions interview.)

Halbs's Reviews:

Book and Dagger

Nerds vs Nazis

Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II by Elyse Graham

August 20, 2026 by Halbs 2 Comments

As promised by the title, Graham’s Book and Dagger delivers plenty of stories of academics and librarians helping the Allies in World War II through espionage and other covert ways. As the book notes, the best spy isn’t someone dashing like a James Bond. It’s someone who can’t even get a waiter’s attention. Bring in the nerds! No one can get away with collecting books, or asking questions about train gauges, or fiddling with a dam, quite like a nerd. In my mind, though, the […]

Filed Under: Audiobooks, Featured, History, Non-Fiction Tagged With: Elyse Graham, espionage, spies, war, WWII

Halbs's CBR18 Review No:11 · Genres: Audiobooks, Featured, History, Non-Fiction · Tags: Elyse Graham, espionage, spies, war, WWII ·
Rating:
· 2 Comments

“No one has listened to me my whole life and I really want to be heard.”

Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna

August 6, 2026 by Halbs Leave a Comment

My observation about punks, the real ones, is that they’re hard on everyone. Even themselves. Their highest standards come from a desire for things to be better than they are. It’s from having an open heart and caring deeply. In my younger years, a lot of my heroes were exacting artists who cared deeply. Unfortunately, a lot of them are now dead. The world was too much. Therefore, I’m very interested in the punks who survived and seem to be more at peace with the […]

Filed Under: Biography/Memoir, Non-Fiction Tagged With: Kathleen Hanna, music, Punk

Halbs's CBR18 Review No:10 · Genres: Biography/Memoir, Non-Fiction · Tags: Kathleen Hanna, music, Punk ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Late to the party, but still at the party!

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

August 5, 2026 by Halbs 2 Comments

Each year, my spouse and I pick out five books for each other to read. The Wedding People was on my 2026 list, so here we are! A great recommendation. Five stars. It’s almost like she knows me. I know this was a monster book in 2024, so you probably already know about it. If you are one of the uninitiated like I was, The Wedding People is a feel-good dramedy set in a fancy Rhode Island hotel. As you can probably guess, pretty much all […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Alison Espach

Halbs's CBR18 Review No:9 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Alison Espach ·
Rating:
· 2 Comments

“Because her general taste appalled him, it annoyed him that he himself constituted one of her favorites.”

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick

July 17, 2026 by Halbs Leave a Comment

Jason Taverner, like me, is in his early forties. However, unlike me, he is an international superstar. Somewhere between a Kardashian, Jimmy Fallon, and Kelly Clarkson, Taverner is lab created to be a charismatic talk show hosting crooner. He is a “Six” – a special kind of genetically modified cool guy. There’s a schmooze-ness to him, sure, but he is undoubtedly magnetic. That’s why the whole world knows who he is, and why they buy his records. Until they don’t.  One day Taverner is minding […]

Filed Under: Fiction, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction Tagged With: Philip K. Dick

Halbs's CBR18 Review No:8 · Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction · Tags: Philip K. Dick ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments
A crow looks down at a smothered cigarette.

“Their mistake was believing they were the scary people in the room.”

The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Ron Currie

July 16, 2026 by Halbs Leave a Comment

This quickest and most accurate review that I can give of The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne is this: The book reads like a strong season of the Fargo TV series on FX. If you like Fargo,  you’ll like this book. If you don’t, you won’t. What’s like Fargo in the book? First, the tone. The reader will enjoy a counterintuitively pleasing gumbo of tension, laugh-out-loud humor, sharp truth telling, sadness, and mystery. Second, the compelling characters. Ron Currie’s titular Babs Dionne is the […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Ron Currie

Halbs's CBR18 Review No:7 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Ron Currie ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments
Image of four young men in 1950s clothing.

I Wish That I Could Be Like the Cool Kids

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

July 14, 2026 by Halbs Leave a Comment

Every adult was a kid at one time, and probably always a kid in some ways. Either in play or wonder or understanding of the world and its dynamics. Yet, somehow, I always forget that kids intuit and navigate the same world we adults do, often with more moral clarity and insight if not vocabulary. S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders is a great reminder of those truths. Not just because it’s such a timeless story of coming of age, moral luck, and choice. But also because […]

Filed Under: Fiction, Young Adult Tagged With: coming of age novel, coming-of-age, S.E. Hinton

Halbs's CBR18 Review No:6 · Genres: Fiction, Young Adult · Tags: coming of age novel, coming-of-age, S.E. Hinton ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments
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