Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Every woman who enters the sea carries a coffin on her back.”

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

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I had never heard of it, but when my book club chose The Island of Sea Women (2019) by Lisa See, I was excited to read it. The ones who had already read it mentioned that there was some very graphic violence, which is helpful to know if you prefer not to read that sort of thing. I’m glad my book club chose this historical novel. It was well-written and gave me a glimpse into a time and culture that I knew nothing about. Interestingly, I have […]

“She was right, it would just be another box. It was going to be just another box for him, too, but he’d figured it out. You didn’t get out of one box without getting into another, and you didn’t get out of one box without getting into another, and you didn’t get out without it costing you. “

The Runner (Tillerman Cycle #4) by Cynthia Voigt

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The fourth in the series, this book follows Dicey’s uncle and Samuel’s namesake Bullet (with the moniker he had given himself) in his final year of high school. At this point in family history, the eldest brother has already gotten out of the house, and Liza (Dicey and sibling’s mother) has also left, leaving Bullet behind to fend for himself. He cares little for school, little for anyone really, aside from Patrice who he works for crabbing and oystering. With the onset of the Vietnam […]

Shirley Jackson Stuff – Shirley Jackson

Letters of Shirley Jackson by Shirley Jackson

The Bird's Nest by Shirley Jackson

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson

The Sundial by Shirley Jackson

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Letters of Shirley Jackson – 5/5 Stars A few years ago I read the Collected Letters of Ralph Ellison. One of the very many exciting things about this collection was my learning that he was close friends with Stanley Edgar Hymen and by extention Shirley Jackson. This leads to some various exchanges in that collection that show just how generous of spirit Ralph Ellison often was (and how petty he could sometimes go). This collection has the same set of joys as that colleciton but […]

Philip Roth stuff (I know, I know!)

The Counterlife by Philip Roth

The Professor of Desire by Philip Roth

The Dying Animal by Philip Roth

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The Counterlife – 4/5 Stars Philip Roth seemingly spent his 1980s making further sense or at least writing about what it means to be Jewish, not just in the US, which many of his 50s, 60s, and 70s books dealt, but what it meant to be Jewish in the world. The Counterlife specifically helps to sort out, not necessarily the answer to that question, but to clarify and state precisely the question itself. I am looking back though now, actually to see exactly when the […]

In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower (Within a Budding Grove) – Marcel Proust (1913)

In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower by Marcel Proust

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Book two in Proust and like the first book for me, this is an audiobook listened to over Winter Break mostly while I did yardwork and played video games. I imagine if I told Proust this he would say: “Why are you speaking in English?” “What’s with your weird clothes” “What’s video games?” Anyway, we are older now and love is in the air. Specifically the love of a young girl? Maybe? There were a lot of familiar thoughts happening in this book for me. […]

This was fun

First Comes Like by Alisha Rai

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I enjoyed Girl Gone Viral by Alisha Rai, and then I got sucked in to Rai’s next book when the publisher put the beginning of First Comes Like (2021) at the end of Girl Gone Viral. It was an intriguing beginning and I immediately got sucked in. Jia Ahmed is a beauty expert and influencer. She took the jump and moved to Los Angeles in order to further her career, and that has been her primary focus for quite some time. But then she received a direct message from Dev Dixit. […]



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