Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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About matt_thac

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White, man, feminist, Muslim, living in a country that's not where he's from, and constantly having to navigate his way in other languages and cultures. Any one and all of these at anytime and less confused that than appears.

matt_thac's Reviews:

Who Owns the Moon? In Defence of Humanity's Common Interests in Space by A.C. Grayling

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I came across this book while thinking about modern philosophy/ethics writers I’d appreciated before. I read a few of his books several years ago, The Meaning of Things, having a particular impact on me as a guide for applying philosophy to life. His argument for vegetarianism “You’re eating carrion!” has especially rattled around in my head ever since. I was also reading Alain de Botton around the same time and it’s interesting to see how they’ve grown in different ways,de Botton with his “atheist church” while Grayling […]

https://cannonballread.com/2026/01/who-owns-the-moon-in-defence-of-humanitys-common-interests-in-space-matt_thac/

If you’ve ever read David Sedaris, you know exactly what this is.

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris

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How different cultures view intellectuals and their place in society always fascinates me. In France, prime time TV; if such a thing still exists in the streaming age; features high-brow, thoughtful debate. It sounds great to some, but then every speech needs to start with “As Moliere once said…” so it’s not all win-win. The Anglophone world seems to me to view intellectualism, and by that I mean careful, considered thought and subsequent arguments, with a mixture of “Gosh, isn’t that person witty” (Oscar Wilde, […]

A story right on the edge of my understanding

Jackson Alone by Jose Ando

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Reading, especially fiction, is said to improve our ability to be empathetic to others. It allows us to slip on the shoes of others and walk a mile down a road we perhaps haven’t would never travel. This is one of the reasons I read, why I avoid white male writers, walking the same road as them for the most part. This book takes me off road, being the story of 4 mixed-heritage (Japanese/unknown black African), queer men in Japan and a fast-paced fiction centring […]

Banned in China doesn’t mean what people think it does.

Marrying Buddha by Wei Hui

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  The Community Bookshelf inspired me to reflect on books I’d read around the times I was living in a place. A bit of Googling, which wasn’t really a verb when I read Shanghai Baby, I came across this sequel. Marrying Buddha continues the story of Coco in (probably) largely fictional auto-biographical tale of her bouncing once again between 2 lovers, her Japanese boyfriend Muju, and a “George Clooney lookalike” Nick. I’d almost forgotten how much of a sex symbol George was in the late ’00s. […]

I think I’m done with dystopian fiction for a while

Julia by Sandra Newman

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Dystopian fiction feels very much of the zeitgeist. It’s certainly understandable as some corners of the world get darker and even the brighter ones seem dimmer. Dominant systems are pushing back on the shrinking of their legitimacy, attempting to put the top back on the Pandora’s box of equality and fairer economic systems. This retelling of Orwell’s 1984 from Julia’s perspective is very much in that vein, a misogytopia. Like a lot of men, I like Orwell. Well, more correct to say liked than like. In […]

If the gimmick of the octopus was removed, would I still like this book? Hmmmm

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

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  Books with quirky narrators are always a risk going into them. Some are great; The curious incident of the dog in the night-time offered a fresh perspective, The Book Thief was better for its narrator; while others like The seven moons of Maali Almeida left me a little cold. This one sits somewhere between the two ends. Ostensibly the story of Marcellus the Octopus coming to the end of his life in captivity, he serves more as a framing device for Tova and Cameron’s lives coming […]



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