Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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octothorp

I buy books faster than I can read them.

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octothorp's Reviews:

Youths

Confessions of an average boy by Mark Hill

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Pretty sure I bought this due to enjoying Hill’s work on Cracked but I’m hard pressed to remember which articles inspired adding this to the “I’ll buy you when I have money” Amazon black hole, in part because it stayed there a LONG time.  And at first I was really wondering what the heck I was thinking.  Not to be that guy, but it’s self published and that alone made me skeptical. The actual story doesn’t invite too much promise either. Our protagonist is kind of a jerk. He is shallow and falls into a relationship with a girl out […]

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We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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7/12/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:47 |

Own Voices

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

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  This is my Bingo choice for Own Voices and it’s simultaneously a great one and a terrible one in that it is a fictional book written by a transgender lesbian author about the struggles of changing one’s body to reflect a changing understanding of ones self, and the love the protagonist has for her same-sex roommate.  Perfect, right? The body she’s changing into is a non-human one, not because she has never felt at home with herself, but because their telepathic hormonal communication works better in a body like their own and she wants to be closer to an […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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7/12/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:46 |

The sea section

Calypso by David sedaris

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I feel compelled to quote not the book but the back cover blurb because Lauren Hubbard said it best: “Age and family occupy beloved humorist Sedaris’s latest collection of essays. His observations feel sharper and often darker than in previous collections, as he ponders the inevitable breakdown of the human body, the shame attendant with illness and age, the nature of addiction, and the eccentricities of his family. Though middle age may have made his shades of gray blacker, the wit and incisiveness that make Sedaris much-adored remain.” I found it telling that the cabin that most of the collection’s […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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6/21/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:45 |

The Cult of Ruth

Save me the plums by Ruth Reichl

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It is fairly strange reading a memoir about the height of the subject’s fame and realizing you contributed to it, that you were part of the reason that Reichl’s semi-dreaded “cult of Ruth” took place. But the way that Reichl feels about Gourmet magazine is how I feel about her writing. She writes about the early childhood infatuation with the magazine – the swordfish adorning a 1950’s cover beckoning her to delve deeper and read “the night of lobster” which transports the young Reichl and sets her on a culinary path. Well, that was Garlic and Sapphires for me. I […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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6/15/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:44 |

Almost wasn’t

I am, I am, I am by Maggie o’Farrell

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Man, life is so flipping fragile it’s a wonder any of us survive past infancy. I work at a children’s hospital and see all the ways that one gene flips or one chromosome is duplicated or deleted and suddenly bam, your lifespan goes from 75 to 14, so I have always been acutely aware of this fact (I was real fun during pregnancy, trust me). My problem is I see the race as having been won. I’ve made it this far and so I’m safe, all the near misses have just been flavor to add to my story.  Maggie O’Farrell […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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6/15/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:43 |

Long tail, long time

The Long Tail by Chris Anderson

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I had a Marie Kondo moment and have been reevaluating my library, realizing how many books I’ve kept that aren’t my favorites, am unlikely to refer to again or reread, or loan to a friend.  It’s been a good purge, but I’ve had a few books I was on the fence about and wanted to reread before they hit the resell/donate pile, and this was the first. I remember liking this the first time through and found its insights valuable. The idea that marginal tastes collectively outweigh the mainstream was appealing in 2006, when I remember vividly wanting comic book […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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6/15/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:42 |

I’m a meek rider on a distracted elephant

Switch by Dan Heath, Chip Heath

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Full disclosure, I’m predisposed to love this kind of book.  Malcolm Gladwell’s rise to popularity was a boon to me as I love research into what makes people behave as they do, en masse and as individuals.  Behavioral economics is my jam. I wasn’t as thrilled by the last Heath brothers book I read, The Power of Moments, as it didn’t feel as substantive as Built to Stick, their expansion on Gladwell’s “stickiness” requirement for ideas to “tip” in The Tipping Point. This is something of a midpoint; it’s meatier and less obvious than Moments if not as much of […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

  • Switch by Dan Heath, Chip Heath

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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6/10/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:41 |

Get Lost

Finding the Flavors We Lost by Patrick Kuh

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In his chapter on Williamsburg artisan food makers, Kuh starts to fall into the “ugh hipsters” trap and dismiss a bar’s row of empty growlers as for decor rather than use before realizing it was he who was acting pretentious. DUH. This was nearly impossible to read due to pretentiousness and dilettantism and I’m the type of person to use the word dilettante.  I have a high tolerance for pretension but this was ridiculous; the author flits from subject to subject without regard for narrative theme or cohesion, and writes like every word out of his pen is gold. The […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Get Lost"

6/6/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:40 |


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