Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I think I’ll swear off fries thanks

Boris the Potato Child by Anne Simon

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CBR15Passport author new to me. The publisher description says almost all you need to know about Boris the Potato Child: “a bitter critique of our consumerist impulses and abuses.” Anne Simon created a book that can be violent, exploitative, perverted, and triggering. It is dark, ugly, and powerful. Regardless of if you love or hate, it is a story that can make you think. And Jenna Allen’s translation feels smooth. Outside of a few little quirks, you cannot tell this was not originally English. Of […]

Both light, dark, funny, silly, goofy, inspirational and a few things in between poetry for all ages

Lila Duray: A Collection of Delightfully Delectable Poems by Emily Morrison

What Color Is Goodness? by Emily Morrison

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CBR15Passport new author When I had the opportunity to obtain copies of a new to me poets work, I was excited. I love finding new people to read and hopefully recommend. And yes, I will be recommending Emily Morrison. And granted, while not everything in her poetry collection was to my personal tastes, I enjoyed the mixture of classical poems and modern sensibilities. There are rhymes in most of them, some are funny and some serious. The mixture helps mix things up, so you are […]

At the very crowded intersection of Black History and Banned Books

Black Was the Ink by Michelle Coles

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CBR15passport new to you authors On February 1, the first day of Black History month, the news hit that fascist Governor DeSantis disapproved of the curriculum for the AP African American History course and would ban it from being taught in Florida. Not long after this story aired, it was revealed that Florida officials and AP officials had been negotiating the content of this course for some time and it looks like the AP/College Board basically caved to reactionary political demands and agreed to censor […]

“My inner being is exceptionally cranky and I often don’t want her company myself.”

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

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CBR Passport Challenge: Books Recommended by Friends This is the second book in a trilogy. It doesn’t really make sense if you’ve not read the series from the beginning. So if you’re not caught up, go read A Deadly Education. It’s great, I’ll wait. El and Orion are now seniors in the Scholomance, and they have absolutely no way of knowing if their very dangerous mission just before graduation to fix the furnaces worked. Did they manage to clear the graduation hall of the majority […]

Paula Vogel (1), Lynn Nottage (1), Dario Fo (1), Lillian Hellman (1-2), Cormac McCarthy (1)

How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel

Fabulation by Lynn Nottage

The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman

The Autumn Garden by Lillian Hellman

The Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo

The Counselor by Cormac McCarthy

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How I Learned to Drive “Sometimes to tell a secret, you first have to teach a lesson.” I first read this book in college when I was taking an Intro to Theater class in college where among other things I had to read a bunch of plays and see a bunch of performances. I reread it in part because I know there’s a new performance or maybe recent performance out there. The title “How I Learned to Drive” refers specifically to some “driving lessons” with […]

This was fine, but I doubt I’ll ever re-read it

The Duke Undone by Joanna Lowell

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Lucy Coover is on her way to her painting class at the Royal Academy one morning when she stumbles across a body in an alley. The man is completely naked, and she assumes he’s been the victim of a crime. Then she realises he’s breathing, so he seems to only be dead drunk. As a female art student, Lucy is fascinated by human anatomy but is also not allowed to ever attend life drawing classes at the Academy. She’s late for class but also makes […]



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