Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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About Pooja

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Ardent reader of pretty much anything, including the backs of shampoo bottles. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Pooja's Quick Questions interview.)

Pooja's Reviews:

“Don’t stop beginning. Begin and begin and begin. Begin endlessly—that is, without the taint of even eventual ending.”

All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess by Becca Rothfeld

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Literary critic Becca Rothfeld argues against the modern inclination toward minimalism, and insteads advocates embracing all the messy and irrepressible things that make the human existence so rewarding. I am this book’s target audience, because like Rothfeld I wonder if in the process of streamlining our world we have reached an unpleasantly bland and bloodless zeitgeist. I enjoy colorful and unusual clothes and furniture. I find the aesthetic of minimalism boring. I love the over the top pulp literature of yesteryears. I don’t want the […]

Camelot Was Always a Lie

Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed by Maureen Callahan

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CBR16 Bingo: Golden – Callahan attacks the golden myth of Camelot and the Kennedy family, revealing the dark and dangerous truth underneath. Lurking in the darker corners of the Kennedy family legacy are the many women whose lives turned out worse for the association. In this book, Maureen Callahan tries to bring them to light. I’m familiar with many of the people and stories in this book, but Callahan does an excellent job of placing them in context of each other, weaving across generations and decades to […]

“Big Jim’s eyeball fell out. Like, fell the fuck out of his head. It rolled onto the grass, and to be honest, Big Jim and I were both taken aback.”

Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton

Feral Creature by Kira Jane Buxton

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CBR16 Bingo: Earth Day – This series revolves around how the natural world starts asserting itself upon the planet when the human race dies out in a pseudo-zombie apocalypse. Hollow Kingdom – 4 stars ST, a domesticated crow, finds himself unexpectedly in the midst of the extinction of the human race, and must make the best of it. I am an animal lover, and so I loved this book. As a pet owner, I found myself fascinated by the exploration of what may become of […]

Finance Bro Mass Delusion

The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend by Rob Copeland

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Ray Dalio became globally famous as the head of an innovative hedge fund and his Principles, which he purported would lead to inevitable success when followed. But behind the scenes at Bridgewater Associates was a bizarre, dysfunctional workplace culture. I vaguely remember hearing about the utter weirdness of Bridgewater Associates before, but Wall Street is not really an area of interest for me. I picked this book up though because of this review by J, which whetted my appetite with promises of crazy workplace drama […]

Bleeding Innocence Dry

Saving Susy Sweetchild by Barbara Hambly

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CBR16 Bingo: Disco – This mystery’s set amid the bright lights of 1920s Hollywood, featuring both it’s fast-living stars and the people behind the scenes who prop them up. English widow Emma has settled comfortably into her new life in 1920s Hollywood as her silent movie star sister-in-law’s companion and part-time script doctor. When a child star and her mother are kidnapped, she gets swept up in the mystery, if only because she and Kitty may be the only ones who really care if Susy […]

Conversations with Houses

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Rose/House by Arkady Martine

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CBR16 Bingo: Dun Dun – Both books play on your nerves, and just when you think the protagonists may be reaching safe harbor things only get worse for them. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson – 4 stars Four people go to an allegedly haunted house to investigate – a scientist, a cheerful artist, a low down scoundrel, and a fragile, friendless young woman. All of them don’t return. This is a short book and slips by almost without you noticing it. At first […]



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