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.

 

Nerds vs Nazis

Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II by Elyse Graham

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As promised by the title, Graham’s Book and Dagger delivers plenty of stories of academics and librarians helping the Allies in World War II through espionage and other covert ways. As the book notes, the best spy isn’t someone dashing like a James Bond. It’s someone who can’t even get a waiter’s attention. Bring in the nerds! No one can get away with collecting books, or asking questions about train gauges, or fiddling with a dam, quite like a nerd. In my mind, though, the […]

“Grind culture is violence and violence creates trauma. We have been traumatized deeply.”

Rest is Resistance: a Manifesto by Tricia Hersey

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Back when I still participated in Twitter, I had been following Tricia Hersey’s The Nap Ministry for years and years. As I’ve unpacked my likely (but not official) autism diagnosis, masking, burnout, depression, burnout, disability, and generally not functioning at the speed that the white supremacist capitalistic hellscape we live in would like me to her rallying cry of rest has resonated greatly. I have pushed back on the demands for my time and energy and routinely schedule what I call sloth weekends where I […]

very very belated ARC review :(

Pride & Provocateur: A Modern Pride and Prejudice Variation in Dildo, Newfoundland by Melissa Yi

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CBR Bingo: Friends, obviously, as the Bennet family here are a found family Hi to fellow Cannonballer Melissa Yi! I’m a strident P&P fangirl, and have rather warm feelings to all of the various adaptations that I’ve encountered along the way. I also have strong opinions about what makes for a good adaptation, because I think people misunderstand the key elements of a P&P vs a story with P&P beats. One thing I think Yi gets absolutely right is that the Bennet sisters don’t actually […]

It’s A Cookbook

The Wide, Wide Sea by Hampton Sides

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Hampton Sides is the author of maybe the best narrative non-fiction work I’ve ever read, Hellhound on his Trail, his book about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr and the subsequent manhunt for the assassin, James Earl Ray. I haven’t given any of his other books a try until now, largely because their subject matter didn’t seem like topics I definitely wanted to read about. At first blush, I felt the same way about The Wide, Wide Sea, which covers the third and final voyage of […]

I feel like these were written for a younger version of me

Dungeons and Drama by Kristy Boyce

Dating and Dragons by Kristy Boyce

Rolls and Rivalries by Kristy Boyce

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CBR Bingo: Dungeons and Drama – Season “It occurs during the Fall season” CBR Bingo: Dragons and Dating – Success “The gaming group is working on becoming successful online streamers” CBR Bingo: Rolls and Rivalries – Left “Knowing your left from your right is fundamental in marching band” I recently had a staycation downtown by myself for a couple days.  As a full-time mom to two teenagers, it was a welcome respite!  I brought several books with me, as one does.  On Wednesday, I found an independent bookstore […]

A harrowing journey in 93 pages.

Happening by Annie Ernaux

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“Thousands of girls have climbed up stairs and knocked on a door answered by a woman who is a complete stranger, to whom they are about to entrust their stomach and womb. And that woman, the only person who can rid them of their misfortune, would open the door, in an apron and patterned slippers, clutching a dish towel, and inquire, “yes, miss, can i help you?” I had been casually looking for this book (which was strangely expensive on Kindle, although the price seems […]



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