Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Word of the Day: Kindness

Can Sophie Change the World? by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace

A Small Kindness by Stacy McAnulty

Hundred Feet Tall by Benjamin Scheuer

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Kindness is the word of the day. Or, at least, the word of the review. Sophie wants to give a gift for her grandfather. He says he does not want anything, but when she insists, he asks her to perform a good work and change the world (a mitzvah). She does not know how she can change the world. She is just a kid and not able to do big things. But when she tells her grandfather of the acts she did while trying to […]

I had a story read to me!

Aalfred and Aalbert by Morag Hood

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When I found my notes for Aalfred and Aalbert I noticed it was Peachtree Publishers that started my online rabbit hole of finding books read via YouTube/online. You see (previous later for Miss Althea readings) I found a link to one Miss Terra Cotta Sugarbaker in the newsletter sent to me via this publisher. They were reading Aalfred and Aalbert for a Drag Queen Storytime. I had a few minutes to give to have a story read to me. Now, the set up/Miss Sugarbaker’s presentation […]

The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

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I first read this in grad school when I had the flu and had a high fever. It really is as great and weird as I thought then.  If you haven’t read Don Quixote, you’re not too late. It’s a bit of slog, but never difficult, especially in this particular edition with the 2003 translation. I haven’t looked at the Tobias Smollett translation from 1755, but I imagine that one’s a little rough these days. The introduction tells us that when the novel was first […]

Behold, we too have a tale

Devil House by John Darnielle

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  I have, once or twice, been near enough to the inside of a newspaper story to get a sense of what happens when something that occurs with real humans is interpreted and reported on by other humans. It’s a game of telephone writ large – suddenly, certain elements get dropped, others become far more prominent than they might have been when the event happened in real time. This can be disorienting for the people inside of the event, who have so much context beyond […]

May 2022 Leftovers

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Hollywood Godfather: My Life in the Movies and the Mob by Gianni Russo

Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier by Mark Frost

Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara

American Tabloid by James Ellroy

Hot Springs by Stephen Hunter

Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier

Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier

Dead Soon Enough by Steph Cha

Bullet Train by Kōtarō Isaka

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Here are the books I read in May 2022 that I didn’t get to give a full review for whatever reason. I read a lot of authors of AAPI descent; their books were all wonderful in their own respective ways… Sea of Tranquility **** Unquestionably a metacommentary on the author’s Station Eleven success in the shadow of Covid-19, it’s a beautifully written reflection on finding peace and contentment in the uncertainties of life. I don’t know that I enjoyed it as much as others did given […]

Good for the right audience

All the Answers by Kate Messner

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“Life isn’t about knowing all the answers. The best we can do is to make peace with our questions, learn who we are, know our strengths, and do the best we can with the gifts we’ve been given while we’re here.” What if you had a magic pencil? What if it had all the answers? Ava Anderson picks up a pencil from the kitchen junk drawer. But, she soon discovered that this is no ordinary pencil. Whatever (factual) question is written by that pencil will […]



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