Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Reports of Her Death Were Slightly Exaggerated

Dava Shastri's Last Day by Kirthana Ramisetti

by Leave a Comment

Sometimes a flashy premise is a double-edged sword. The hook that catches the reader’s attention, and indeed might be what got the book published in the first place, can also lead to the book’s downfall if the author doesn’t do a good enough job of selling it. Such is the case with Dava Shastri’s Last Day. The title character is one of the world’s wealthiest self-made women and a celebrated philanthropist. When she finds out that she is dying, she arranges to have word of […]

Much said beautifully but too much left unsaid

The Maker of Swans: A Novel by Paraic O’Donnell

by 3 Comments

Cbr14bingo bird On the face of it, this novel has a lot going for it: murder, a secret society, an English manor, a man servant who has seen it all. And yet the book was quite frustrating to read. On one hand, the prose is exquisite and the premise of the plot arresting. On the other hand, O’Donnell teases the reader without providing a satisfying payoff in the end. I didn’t want to put it down, but ultimately, I felt sort of cheated. The novel […]

The Bell Jar

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

by Leave a Comment

I have a general theory that a poet should always write at least one novel, and novelist should mostly avoid writing poetry. Some novelists I like have written some serviceable poetry like John Updike or Margaret Atwood or Marge Piercy. Some novelists have written excellent poetry like DH Lawrence and Thomas Hardy, but that’s much more rare. But man, the poets who have written good to great novels is all over the place. This is just simply one of the premier examples. This is the […]

Miller’s Tale

All My Sons by Arthur Miller

The Price by Arthur Miller

The Man Who had all the Luck by Arthur Miller

Incident at Vichy by Arthur Miller

After the Fall by Arthur Miller

The Ride Down St Morgan by Arthur Miller

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

by Leave a Comment

All My Sons In this play, we find ourselves looking in on two families torn apart by the war in a specific way. Joe Keller runs a machine factory that was refitted to build airplane parts during the war. The factory came under fire when a shipment of faulty parts that led to at least 29 deaths of airmen. Consequent of that Joe Keller was tried but exonerated when a second in command took the fall. The general belief is that Joe was innocent and […]

Tower of Swallows

Tower of Swallows by Andrzej Sapkowski

by Leave a Comment

In the audiobook of the Witcher books, the narrator pronounces “Dandelion” not like the flower, but as “Dan Dell Eon”. It’s weird and off-putting. It made me wonder two things for the first time in the series. One, is that really how British people say that, and I think the answer is: no. Two, why is that his name? It turns out that the character’s Polish name is Jaskier, which is also what he’s called in the show. This means Buttercup. I wondered after this […]

The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios

The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios by Yann Martell

by Leave a Comment

This is a collection of early stories from Yann Martell, most famous for Life of Pi. If you look at his general output of writing, across thirty years, he hasn’t published all that much, but of course Life of Pi is a) a huge success, b) won the Booker Prize and became an Oscar winning movie, and c) is quite good. It also begins with Yann Martell the narrator of the book discussing his frustration with publishing and finding things to write about. This book […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo