Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“The past is the future”

Obasan by Joy Kogawa

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Cbr17bingo citizen Over the years, I have read a number of books that have dealt with the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. George Takei’s They Called Us Enemy and Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic and When the Emperor Was Divine were all written from personal, family experiences of that shameful chapter in US history that was left out of history books when I was in school (and is probably being removed from them now). I had never heard of Joy […]

On the Horror of Raising Children in a Messed Up World

When I'm Dead by Hannah Morrissey

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When I’m Dead is the third entry in Hannah Morrissey’s Black Harbor mystery/suspense series. Morrissey calls her genre “Midwestern Noir;” think Scandi Noir, but set in Wisconsin! So far, you can read the Black Harbor books in a standalone fashion. Each story is mostly its own thing, although they all take place in the same city, and occasionally a character will drift from one book into another. Just read them in order, though, don’t be dramatic. This book is about the Winthrop family, and what living […]

Talk to an adult, Harry!

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling, narrated by Stephen Fry

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My family and I have continued listening to the Stephen Fry–narrated Harry Potter audiobooks during long car rides to visit relatives. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third book in the series, is one of my personal favourites. I especially love how it ties together the story so far while reaching back to James Potter’s own time at Hogwarts and the friendships he formed there. Listening to this instalment was particularly engaging for my eight-year-old, who asked plenty of questions and was always […]

The Walking Dull

Zone One by Colson Whitehead

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I’m not sure if Zone One by Colson Whitehead is actually a Pulitzer Prize winner or not, but I can tell you one thing: I’ve made it to the 30% mark and I can go no further. I have never been bored so stiff by a zombie novel in all my days—and I’ve read a lot of zombie novels. This meandering, overwritten, richly-prosed-but-empty-on-characterisation slog has almost killed my love of reading. I’ve been stuck on it for over two months and yet, every time I […]

Are we the baddies?

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

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CBR Bingo: Citizen (the main character is pretty much the “ideal” citizen in her society) I read Emily Tesh’s The Incandescent a few months ago, and I enjoyed it and wanted to try the author’s other works, so I recently picked up Some Desperate Glory, her debut novel. Sometime in the future, Earth has been destroyed by alien technology. Some of the remaining humans inhabit Gaea Station, constructed of old warships, and form a militaristic society where children are born and raised almost solely with the goal […]

Beware the Chocolate Mouse!

Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

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Rosemary’s Baby is the story of Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse, a young couple living in New York City in the 1960’s. Living on Guy’s salary (he’s a barely making ends meet actor), they, or mostly Rosemary, decide they have to move into the Bramford, Levin’s answer to the Dakota. Welcomed by their neighbors Minnie and Roman Castevet and their tenant Terry Gionoffri, Rosemary and Guy quickly settle in. Guy becomes very close to the Castevets, especially after poor Terry throws herself out their window which […]



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