Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Banned in China doesn’t mean what people think it does.

Marrying Buddha by Wei Hui

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  The Community Bookshelf inspired me to reflect on books I’d read around the times I was living in a place. A bit of Googling, which wasn’t really a verb when I read Shanghai Baby, I came across this sequel. Marrying Buddha continues the story of Coco in (probably) largely fictional auto-biographical tale of her bouncing once again between 2 lovers, her Japanese boyfriend Muju, and a “George Clooney lookalike” Nick. I’d almost forgotten how much of a sex symbol George was in the late ’00s. […]

It’s hard to resist a book with a cat on the cover

We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida

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I’m probably late to the trend (I usually am), but I hadn’t noticed until fairly recently how many books written in Japan center around cats. Last year, I read the touching If Cats Disappeared from the World, and the surprisingly comforting Blanket Cats. The disappointing Before the Coffee Gets Cold did not include a cat, but it should have, and I think the publishers knew it needed one because they put a cat on the cover. Anyway, I’m continuing the trend in 2026 with a […]

I think I’m done with dystopian fiction for a while

Julia by Sandra Newman

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Dystopian fiction feels very much of the zeitgeist. It’s certainly understandable as some corners of the world get darker and even the brighter ones seem dimmer. Dominant systems are pushing back on the shrinking of their legitimacy, attempting to put the top back on the Pandora’s box of equality and fairer economic systems. This retelling of Orwell’s 1984 from Julia’s perspective is very much in that vein, a misogytopia. Like a lot of men, I like Orwell. Well, more correct to say liked than like. In […]

Lost in the Brain Fog

The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp by Leonie Swann

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When their neighbor turns up shot and killed, Agnes and her housemates are excited to be able to pin the death of their friend Lilith on the same murderer – if only they can solve the crime themselves before the police do. I picked up this book because the premise cracked me up. The image of these pensioners all creeping around trying to cover up one murder and solve another is just so dark and amusing. Of course, as I started reading I quickly found […]

Navel Gazers United

Justine by Lawrence Durrell

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Justine follows the various intermingled lives and love affairs of a group of artistic people in Alexandria, where it sometimes seems the city is playing itself out in their daily struggles. This is a bit of a difficult book to write a review of, because frankly not much happens. The narrator is in a relationship with one woman but becomes bound in a passionate affair with another, complicated by the fact that he is friends with her husband, and the fact that this woman Justine […]

Slow Dance…Slow Burn

Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell

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Confession: I’ve been in a reading slump. Like, for a long time. And usually Janet brings me out of my slump with a shot of Stephanie/Ranger/Morelli throuple-ness around the holidays, but Janet didn’t publish a book this year. She’s also the one who gets me to at least write one review. Aside: Will this year be the year I write more than one? Who knows? Probably not. Anyway. I didn’t realize how much I missed Rainbow until I read Slow Dance. This is just a […]



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