Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Generations

My Baba's Garden by Jordan Scott

Babo: A Tale of Armenian Rug-Washing Day by Astrid Kamalyan

Dadaji’s Paintbrush by Rashmi Sirdeshpande

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What do you do when you have a picture book online reader copy marathon? You read them, then decide which ones to write up. And these stories about different generations coming together are just a small sample of what was on my reading plate. Both of my grandmothers were odd. After all, they married my grandfathers. And you don’t know odd until you have met the man the neighborhood called “the crazy old man with the ski pole” or the one who told the president […]

Food at once grounded me and took me to other places. It comforted me and challenged me. It was part of the fabric that made up my creative self and my domestic self. It allowed me to express my love for the people I love and make connections with new people I might come to love.”

Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci

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CBR Bingo – Edibles Very important disclaimer: this book will make you absolutely ravenous for pasta. One part memoir, one part cookbook, Tucci takes us back and forth through his life via his tastebuds growing up in an idyllic childhood as the child of Italian-Americans in Northern New York. I’ve always been charmed by Tucci, my favorite performance of his is as one-half of my chosen fictional parenting duo of all time, along with Patricia Clarkson in “Easy A.” He has such an affable presence […]

“Humans. For the most part, you are dull and blundering. But occasionally, you can be remarkably bright creatures.”

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelvy Van Pelt

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CBR Bingo – Bodies, Bodies Have you ever read a book that included a POV of an intelligent, and even a bit condescending, octopus? Van Pelt grips your attention right out of the gate with that device as we jump POV from Marcellus (the octopus) to Tova (the widow) and see the beginnings of their unlikely friendship, despite the fact that they aren’t even the same species. Marcellus’ body itself is a character as you see him squeeze through an improbably small space out of […]

“We’ve got story enough here to eff up more than one young life, but it is a project.”

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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CBR Bingo – In the Wild When I heard that Barbara Kingsolver had written a Pulitzer Prize winner I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. I was a huge fan of her 1999 Pulitzer finalist “The Poisonwood Bible” and have enjoyed a number of her other books so I knew I was going to like this book and I was right. This book is in my top five for the year. Kingsolver is a brilliant writer, creating characters that are both common and […]

“To die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier”

The Gilded Ones (2021) by Namina Forna

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CBR Bingo 15 square Africa, because author Namina Forna was born and raised in Sierra Leone, on the west coast, a former British colony. It was first called Serra Lyoa, or Lion Mountain, because it was first “discovered” by Pedro de Sintra, a Portuguese explorer in the 15th century, who feared lions in the rolling of thunder in the hills around the harbour. I know this because I learned it in school, because when I was little I went to school in said hills, and […]

Kawaii Ghosts

Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda (author(, Polly Barton (translator)

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CBR Bingo- Asia/Oceana- BINGO! Where the Wild Ladies Are is a collection of Japanese folk tales retold with a feminist point of view. The tales all have ghosts in them, but they are mostly cute or beautiful ghosts, and not scary ghosts. The only one I thought was a bit tense was The Peony Lanterns, a story about two traveling saleswomen where things start escalating and then seppuku or ritual suicide is suggested, but not really. If you’ve ever tried to get rid of a […]



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