Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Two reviews, four books

The Many Hats of Louie the Rat by Sakshi Mangal

Time to Go! by Marta Cunill

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I wanted to read Revenge of the Raccoons by Vivek Shraya and illustrated by Juliana Neufeld. I clicked on the link I had, and The Many Hats of Louie the Rat by Sakshi Mangal showed up. But that was just par for today’s course. My day started late, my computer wanted to act up at work, I had to stand in a too long line for lunch only to have the food gone bad. I needed something good and fast. Now, The Many Hats of Louise […]

Dystopia never looked so wrongly beautiful

Brave New World: A Graphic Novel by Fred Fordham

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Never having read the novel, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and only having a passing knowledge of the text/story itself, I was not sure what to expect with Brave New World: A Graphic Novel. The other reviews I read on Goodreads mention the misogyny of the male characters. I am sorry to point out, but duh…. It was 1932. Do you think the author was “woke?” I am assuming he never expected women to read his works because you know, women “don’t read” and […]

Wonder Boys

Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

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I am rereading this (and will likely get around to other Michael Chabon books later) and for the most part I really enjoyed the reread. This is a second novel that is so far superior to a first novel that there was always the clear indication of talent. And even as a second novel there’s a precociousness here. Chabon was 32 or so when this was published, but the narrator is a burnt-out contemporary novelist working at a university who is somewhere around page 2000 […]

Ethan Frome

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

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There’s a running joke at my job about this book. Most teachers there hate it and almost all kids hate it. And yet, people keep teaching it. I labeled an email “Another thought I had about Ethan Frome” to a colleague and then cut and pasted the entire text of the novella to them in the body of the email, which should be fun if I ever get FOIAed. Anyway, I love this book and think it’s really good. I also understand why kids don’t. […]

White Noise

White Noise by Don Delillo

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This is another reread. I first read this book in 2003 or so when I was in college, and while I enjoyed a lot about it, I can’t say I understood much beyond the weird story. There’s a Beckett-like element at play within this novel, as so many of the fat-rendered glut of modern life is broken down into elemental language that gives us both narration and dissection at the same time. It’s like a mid-century suburban novel written by a robot. Our narrator is […]

Gulliver’s Travels

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

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Patti Smith voice: Horses, horses, horses, horses, horses….. This book is amazing and more people should read it. I recently decided to tackle a few of my literature gaps, and 18th century British literature is probably my major one. I could say 17th century too, but I have read enough Shakespeare and other contemporaries plus later poets to at least appear respectable. I can ask questions at the every least. Anyway, I recently picked up a Tobias Smollett book and while it was going okay […]



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