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:

Star Trek: Game of Thrones Edition

Vanguard #2: Summon the Thunder by Dayton Ward, Kevin Dilmore

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Earlier this year I reviewed book one in the Star Trek Vanguard series. Long story short – it’s a series set in the time of the original Star Trek tv show. It’s about the Federation and the rest of the known universe encountering technology that is simultaneously very old and very advanced. While I liked many of the ideas in the book, the writing felt a little hammy and dated. Summon the Thunder is book two in the series. While some plot points carry over […]

It’s about being there for your team

Just Show Up: And Other Enduring Values from Baseball's Iron Man by Cal Ripkin, Jr.

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When I was a kid, I loved baseball. I played it, I collected cards, I watched the games on tv and at the Astrodome, I read about it in magazines, I prepped my glove like it was Excalibur. You name it. The early 90s MLB strike ruined the game for me and I haven’t really been back. However, even as an outsider, I was aware of Cal Ripken, Jr.’s amazing streak of playing in over 2,600 games. Can you imagine doing anything 2,600 times in a row? I […]

Have you heard of Pervitin?

Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich by Norman Ohler

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One of the weirdest things that’s happened to me as an adult is that I’ve learned how fluid “history” can be. Growing up, my understanding of the concept of history was that smart people figured out what happened, and they told us, and that was it. In college books like Lies My Teacher Told Me and A People’s History of the United States opened up my thinking to the idea that any narrative (historical or otherwise) comes from a point of view and has a […]

Last Evenings on Earth

Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolaño

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“We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain.” Last Evenings on Earth is a dreamlike collection of 14 short stories by Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño. I write “middling” with affection; many of the stories in this collection are semi-autobiographical in spirit if not fact and the author focuses on what it’s like to be a writer of low notoriety. Many of the stories include petty jealousies and insecurities amongst artists in social […]

Grumpy Sunshine Literary Summer

Beach Read by Emily Henry

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My wife reads around 100 books a year. At the end of each year, she picks five or 10 of those for me to read. They’re usually some of my favorites each year – it’s almost like she knows me.) One of her choices for me this year was Emily Henry’s Beach Read, which was a Book of the Month Club choice and would probably be a great movie with the right cast. It’s a “grumpy sunshine”-styled rom-com, although it doesn’t fit squarely in the […]

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Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife

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Years ago, I mentioned in the CBR comments that I was interested in learning more about the beauty of math, but that I was awful at math.  Some benevolent commentator told me that Charles Seife’s Zero was a great book about the beauty of math for a lay person. I can’t remember the person who told me that, but I’m appreciative of the recommendation. After years of sitting on my digital shelf, late last year this piece of niche non-fic finally got its time in […]

https://cannonballread.com/2022/02/zero-the-biography-of-a-dangerous-idea-halbs/



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