Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Featured Review Archive

These reviews, which were promoted in CBR social media, on our homepage, and in Pajiba Love, appear below by review publication date, not by date featured.

 

A new way into Batman comics

Absolute Batman 1-6 by Scott Snyder & Nick Dragotta

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Last year Wayne Family Adventures got me back into DC Comics and then I heard about the ‘Absolute’ universe which seemed a good entry point back into actual monthly comics. What’s the Absolute Universe? Having now read back there was a run of comics called Absolute Power which led to a finale in which Darkseid gained control over a new universe – an Elseworld – shared by its heroes. It’s a bleaker, darker, world in which our known heroes have new origins that have removed […]

With Enemies Like These

A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Ben Macintyre

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I don’t think there’s much of a distinction between this and Ben Macintyre’s other works: it’s well researched, narratively streamlined, and occasionally thrilling. But this feels like his best book by far. And I don’t have much in the way of justification for saying that aside from how deeply personal it feels like Kim Philby’s betrayal still feels to him and the English. I say “the English” specifically because while MI-6 technically serves the United Kingdom, this is very much an English story. A story […]

Are You Happy? by Lori Ostlund

Are You Happy? by Lori Ostlund

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Please note that I received this via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review. Well this is weird. This is a short story collection I enjoyed from beginning to end. Some of the stories were fairly long, some were short, but all hit me in a place of just missing people. I think the title, “Are You Happy?” is asking a question and one wonders if it was a question the author wanted to ask certain characters. Most of the nine stories focus […]

A Cozy Mystery That Will Make You Drool

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutano

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Vera Wong may be an old lady, but that doesn’t mean she’s slowed down. She’s up every morning before the sun rises to take her daily walk and send her grown son a good morning text. (Just to make sure that he’s up and ask whether he has a girlfriend yet.) He doesn’t often text her back, but that’s ok, because Vera has things to do. She owns and operates Vera Wang’s World Famous Teahouse in the heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown, and has to […]

Grumpy/Sunshine In Space With Some Miscommunication

Eclipse the Moon by Jessie Mihalik

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I have had a really rough end of last year/beginning of this year with reading.  Probably in part due to the state of everything (gestures at the world at large), so I’m starting my year by finishing up a number of books I started in 2024.  I’ve also started a project that I hope will help me get back into reading.  It’s a book blanket where each square matches the colors of the cover of a book I’ve read this year.  I’m hoping the project […]

“The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world’s definitions”

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

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There is no American truth teller like James Baldwin. I always come away from his writing–whether fiction or nonfiction–changed. I don’t know how he could hold so much clear-eyed rage and pain alongside so much love and dignity. He never spared anyone from the truth, even himself. His book The Fire Next Time is a short book with only two essays, but he packs so much into them. The first essay is a letter to his nephew, called “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew […]



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