Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

and now, for something completely different

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

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Wow, people are really divided on this book, aren’t they? It’s like “5 stars amazing best thing ever” and “1 star this is drivel did no one tell the author that blood sausages weren’t sold during WW2?” and literally nothing in between. I find myself not quite in between–the dreaded three star, I don’t really have an opinion, but here are 500 words on this book anyway–but this was definitely a book that a) grew on me and b) washed over me. One thing I […]

I read some books and I want you to know about them

The Pack by Amanda Cley

A Perfect Spot by Isabelle Simler

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A surprise in the mail other day found its way to my desk. Two hardcover picture books from a publisher I do not remember asking for (but I am on publishers’ lists so it could be they cold-sent!) called The Pack by Amanda Cley and Cecilia Ferri and A Perfect Spot by Isabelle Simler. The Pack is spooky. Not in the usual sense of “creepy ghosts or goblins” but the tone is somber, and the sepia colors (with the hints of rare other colors just […]

Another rogue bites the dust

The Good Girl's Guide to Rakes by Eva Leigh

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I haven’t read much historical romance lately, and after reading this one I may not again for awhile.  I’d forgotten how formulaic a lot of these books are now, especially by authors that churn out several in a short time.  I really enjoyed Eva Leigh’s earlier books in this genre, but this one was rather predictable.  The basic plot is that three male friends, (who are, of course, hedonistic bachelors who have no real desire to settle down) must find suitable respectable women to marry […]

Jailbird

Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut

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Another Vonnegut book I am rereading, this one from 1979 and more or less starting off his 80s and 90s run. It’s another book that makes me laugh now to reread and wonder what in the world I must have thought was going on when I read it when I was 15. Anyway, this book also speaks to the idea that if something meaningful happened in the United States during the 20th century, there’s a good chance it’s showed up as a kind of subplot […]

Short story that needs a novel

Hush by Mary Anne Mohanraj

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Dear Mary Anne Mohanraj, your story Hush just blew me away! I have probably never read anything so short that threw me for such a loop. This story about a middle-aged mom coming home from a long trip as a flight attendant. She is “human” but not of a new world, not like her ancestors of Old Earth. But is she humane? This is tested the day she comes home to find her (alien) neighbors’ daughter (approximately 14-years-old) being harassed by the local authorities. Of course, you […]

Last Evenings on Earth

Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolaño

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“We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain.” Last Evenings on Earth is a dreamlike collection of 14 short stories by Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño. I write “middling” with affection; many of the stories in this collection are semi-autobiographical in spirit if not fact and the author focuses on what it’s like to be a writer of low notoriety. Many of the stories include petty jealousies and insecurities amongst artists in social […]



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