Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln

The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen L Carter

by Leave a Comment

This novel sort of answers the question of what if Dan Brown wrote a John Grisham novel. And well, the answer to that question is probably not that interesting ultimately, but this novel is a solid legal thriller with some suspense and historical fiction elements wrapped in it. The novel begins with the premise that Lincoln survives his assassination attempt while Johnson dies. That’s the opposite of how it went (actually Johnson was never even attacked but his assassination was plotted). It’s a few years […]

Stars in My Pocket like Grains of Sand

Stars in My Pocket like Grains of Sand by Samuel Delany

by Leave a Comment

It’s difficult to review this novel, and would be difficult to recommend it because the experience of reading it can be confusing and disorienting. Two other books kind of come to mind for me with this book, one that seemingly borrows some of the technique in this book and the other that clarifies the experience. There’s also a few other sci fi books and movies that create the same kind of disorientation for me. We begin with a scene in which a young wastrel (who […]

Half Blood Blues

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

by Leave a Comment

Whenever I read James Baldwin, especially his essays, I think about how when he talks about Paris in the 40s and 50s (and so forth) as being a place in which he doesn’t always have to be conscious of his race as a Black man (and especially an African-American). There’s a part of me that gets it, but I also think about what forms of racism, prejudice, or just otherness he still must go through, and understand more so that he’s making a careful calculation […]

Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer

Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser

by Leave a Comment

I am not entirely sure what I mean by this but this is one of the most 1990s novels I could imagine. Other examples from American writers: Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres, Carol Shields’s The Stone Diaries, Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents, and basically any TS Boyle novels. This novel begins in the later 1800s and makes its way through the early 1900s and spends its whole length in New York City. Martin Dressler is a cigar-maker’s son, and when he’s […]

It don’t run in our blood

We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida

by Leave a Comment

This starts out almost like an Elena Ferrante novel – it is the story of female friends, or more accurately frenemies. Both girls are young, but on the cusp of becoming teenagers – and so they think they’re ready to act as adults. The majority of the book takes place in early 1980s San Francisco, in an elite beach community with a view of the bridge and easy access to the ocean. Today, that area might be home to uber rich tech bros, but in […]

slick with sweat, thick with hate-and I love it

The Lover by Marguerite Duras

by 2 Comments

Somehow, this incredible little novella flew completely under my radar until last year. Luckily, the folks over at Lit Hub are absolutely obsessed, and I was unable to remain in the dark for much longer. When it’s in a book I don’t think it’ll hurt any more …exist any more. One of the things writing does is wipe things out. Replace them. While not entirely an “autobiography”, Duras tells the tale of a very young girl who grew up in an unstable household in French-colonized […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo