Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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

Halbs's Reviews:

“If there’s a purpose to life it’s to love and communicate.”

Cyberville: Clicks, Culture, and the Creation of an Online Town by Stacy Horn

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A tip of the hat for tech & culture writer Joanne McNeil for mentioning this book in her excellent Lurking. Cyberville is the story of New York City’s 1990s “online salon,” Echo. Stacy Horn founded Echo and authored this book. However,  the book features clips of lengthy discussions from Echo and its Echoids, so in effect the book is collectively authored. As are all online communities. That’s really what this book is about – the co-creation of online communities. While it was written in 1998, […]

The Red Devil Rides Again

Red Sonja Volume 3: The Forgiving of Monsters by Gail Simone

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This third volume of Gail Simone’s stories about the Hyrkanian warrior wraps up the author’s fantastic run on Red Sonja series. Simone brings adventure, heart, and humor to a character that could easily be one dimensional in the wrong hands. She is kind of like Gronk in a chainmail bikini. (Thankfully, a hardcover collection of Simone’s run recently came out. I think all three volumes are of equal quality, so if you read the first one and enjoy it, just get the hardcover.) Volume three […]

Just keep swimming

Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life...And Maybe the World by William McRaven

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I went to the University of Texas, so Admiral Bill McRaven’s 2014 commencement speech “If you want to change the world, make your bed,” has a special place in my burnt orange heart. But the speech has a ton of important and practical life advice applicable to anyone. You can grab an idea or short story to focus on in any given day and it will help you. This short book is based on his speech – a little more fleshed out and with some […]

Raise a Glass

Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol by Mallory O'Meara

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“All drinks are girly drinks.” This sentence closes Mallory O’Meara’s book and also serves a sort of double-pronged thesis. All drinks are girly drinks in the sense that women can drink what they want. Historically, all drinks are “girly” drinks in the sense that women around the globe were integral to the development of brewing, distilling, mixing, and serving alcoholic drinks. (O’Meara is great at double meanings in subtitles. Her Lady from the Black Lagoon is subtitled “Hollywood monsters” in the horror sense, and also […]

A few good motivational ideas

It Takes What It Takes: How to Think Neutrally and Gain Control of Your Life by Trevor Moawad, Andy Staples

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I found out about Trevor Moawad through NFL quarterback Russell Wilson. Moawad was kind of a mental coach for Wilson, as he also was for many other professional and collegiate athletes and programs. Moawad’s dad was a big leader in the motivational speaking and proto-self-help world, with a focus on self-esteem. Unfortunately, Trevor Moawad recently died from a terminal illness. I thought it would be nice to read his book as a kind of show of respect. It Takes What it Takes comes from the […]

“We’re in a kind of compulsory dodgeball game as we free-fall from Wherever to Ain’t Got a Clue.”

The Colorado Kid by Stephen King

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The Colorado Kid is one of Stephen King’s three entries in the Hard Case Crime series. These Hard Case Crime books are throwbacks to 1950-ish pulpy novels, which at the time they initially came out cost the same as a movie ticket. They even come with the slightly unseemly painted covers of yore. (The HCC books, like the books they’re based on, are roughly the same cost as a movie ticket, which kind of stinks because movies are expensive!!) Colorado Kid sounds like it would […]



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