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:

Love Drives Out Fear

Beyond Awkward Side Hugs: Living as Christian Brothers and Sisters in a Sex-Crazed World by Bronwyn Lea

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When I was newly married one of my local churches gave a great series of sermons about marriage. There was helpful advice about mutual service and building lives and support systems together. In retrospect, one piece advice always bothered me, though. It was a variation on The Billy Graham Rule. Billy Graham famously wouldn’t be alone with a woman who wasn’t his wife, in an effort to flee from any hint of sexual immorality, I suppose. (He also made his finances reviewable by others to […]

“There shall be a fire that knows your name”

Annihilation: A Novel (The Southern Reach Trilogy Book 1) by Jeff VanderMeer

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I’m not adept at describing great things. Maybe at comparing great things. This book reminds me of some of my all-time favorite science fiction: the unbearable and beautiful encounter with the unknowable in Kubrick’s 2001, the complete experience of organic otherness in Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama, the blissful insanity resulting being in the midst of the majesty of nature and space in Alex Garland’s movie Sunshine. This book has all of those things, and it’s also it’s own creation. If you’ve ever seen a trailer […]

Flawed Protagonist

Sam Houston and the American Southwest by Randolph B. Campbell

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Any digging into the past dredges up shameful events and ideas. In 2020 this is especially true in the South. A mix of racism, cruelty, xenophobia, tribalism, and more is immediately obvious. That’s no secret. There are bright spots, though. People like Sam Houston remind us that even in dark times one has the ability to stand up for principles and humanity. Therefore, this book contains some hypertimely encouragement for summer 2020. The first lesson I took is that Houston did what he wanted to, […]

Field Hockey+ Varsity Blues + Dazed and Confused + Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

We Are the Wildcats by Siobhan Vivian

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Found this one mentioned in an article in my BookPages at my library, back when we could go to libraries regularly and grab magazines others had touched without much worry. Remember those days? Wow. The article pitched this one as an all-nighter adventure of a women’s high school field hockey team. I didn’t play field hockey,but I did play lacrosse. It seemed like a fun romp through memory lane. Teams love hijinks! I think on a psychological level team hijinks help us understand the strength […]

The Tao of Daisy Duke

Open Book by Jessica Simpson

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I’m roughly the same age as Jessica Simpson, although prior to reading Open Book I didn’t know much about her other than that she had a reality show with Nick Lachey in the 2000s. She also played Daisy Duke in the Johnny Knoxville/Sean William Scott movie Dukes of Hazzard. (I saw that in theaters.) Since I love a good celebrity autobiography, I gave this one a shot. Glad I did, because it only took a few days for me to listen to the whole audiobook. Open Book […]

We have a diet-culture epidemic

Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating by Christy Harrison

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This is probably the last food/body/eating book I’ll review for some time as, honestly, I’m tired of thinking about it! If you were to go through all of my Goodreads list in the last few years you’d see a sort of accidental autobiography of health and body phases – the “Wellness Diet” phase (Whole 30, keto, various “lifestyle” books, etc), then some disordered eating books, and then acceptance books like Intuitive Eating, Caroline Dooner’s The F It Diet, and finally this one. I’m glad I’m wear […]



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