Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Deeply Dippy

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Mosfegh

by Leave a Comment

The year is 2000, the place is downtown Manhattan. Our protagonist is young, beautiful and rich. She has a degree in art history from a prestigious university and a job at a trendy art gallery. On the face of it, she is living the Manhattan dream, but she is deeply unhappy. All she wants is to sleep. Her theory is that her cells will renew themselves that way, that she will thus become a new person. So she locks herself into her apartment, takes staggering […]

“And he’ll burn our horizons / make no mistakes”

The Song of Achilles (2011) by Madeline Miller

by Leave a Comment

Spoiler alerts for a Bronze Age epic poem, I guess, also content note for discussion of sex in this review. I liked this but I didn’t love it. Homer’s Iliad is about blood and fire and gods and fate, about a war that made heroes and villains into legends that echoed through the ages (and sometimes switched their positions). The Song of Achilles is about one of these heroes, the titular Achilles, he of the heel, and his lover Patroclus, and it’s…sweet? And (rather surprisingly) […]

Abundance

Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

by Leave a Comment

Perhaps as a way to make myself feel some modicum of a real plan for the future, I read Abundance, which is a look at how best to achieve progressive goals. And to preface, I cannot recommend this book as a conversation starter more. It does a good job of pointing out the pitfalls of the current democratic party, in the landscape of the world. Whether it’s NIMBYs and blocking housing, to the legal system that seeks to stymie anything and everything, to the best […]

Undone

Undone by Karen Slaughter

by 1 Comment

The third will trent book. I had started reading mysteries because I love the way a good whodunnit comes together and I like a detective who has a bit of je ne se qua. The Will trent series of books does this with a solid character, trauma for backstory but not such that it’s his only characteristic, and a supporting cast of characters. This book in particular, introduces the transplant doctor slash M.E. who lost her husband in a previous series (side note: still my […]

Bishop might take Knight, but the Queen wins

Elsa's Chessboard by Jenny Andrus

by Leave a Comment

For the grandmother that wanted to play chess with her granddaughter, author Jenny Andrus wrote Elsa’s Chessboard. She was a child who did not have interest in an “old dusty game,” but now she is giving us a peek at the woman who would change chess in ways unexpected. Based on the life of Elsa Konstandt Weisz, we go from Vienna to San Francisco as a young Jewish woman flees WWII and makes a new home in the United States, all the while keeping her […]

Break a leg, have fun, and learn along the way

Bravo for Backstage! by Mary Rand Hess, Randy Preston and Marilena Perilli

by Leave a Comment

Looking through an online catalog I found a couple titles that looked interesting to read. At the time they did not have a link to them, so I emailed the rep of the publisher to see if I could get a reader copy either digitally or physically. I found it a little funny as she is a former coworker of mine from the sister store. I gave them a little gossip, and asked for a reader. They had just gotten digital ones and sent me […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo