Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

How do we become human except in the face of adversity?

Happiness by Aminatta Forna

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HALF CANNONBALL! CBR15 BINGO (Africa square: The main character is African. Author is of African descent: father from Sierra Leone. Various political/military situations in the book take place in Africa.) Yet another book that jumped out to me initially because of its eco-fiction bent: studying urban dwelling fox in London. However, it turned out to be about so much more than that. Attila is an itinerant psychologist from Ghana that specializes in PTSD. Regularly traveling to give keynote speeches and expert testimony, his early career […]

A Future I Can Believe In

The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz

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I seem to be having a bit of a #scifisummer and it has been so fun and refreshing, even when it’s tense and complicated. Sometimes the chaos goblin who runs my brain at the library is on the right track, and I’ve had some excellent grabs recently. Rocketing straight to the top of the list (get it? rockets?? science fiction???? you’re welcome), is this bonkers beauty that I finished this morning and cannot stop thinking about. In short, we’re about 50,000 years in the future, […]

There is the crime and there is the silence.

The Guest Book by Sarah Blake

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CBR15 BINGO (You Are Here square: Parts of the book take place in coastal Maine and I read the book while I was visiting the area.) I can fall into a good story fairly easily, but there is something to be said about reading a book in its actual setting. A little sea air and waves crashing against rocky cliffs? Summer reading heaven. This novel spans three generations of the Miltons, an “old money” family in New York who went on to build an empire […]

…he wonders, nearly seriously, if he should steal the marlin.

Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan

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CBR15 BINGO (Edibles square: If you consider Red Lobster edible, I guess? Set in a restaurant.) Manny is the manager of a Red Lobster that’s being downsized. At the last lunch and dinner service, he’s convinced a few of his staff members to come in and work even though an impending snowstorm will most likely scare customers away. Whether begrudgingly, out of loyalty, or needing that last paycheck, the employees trickle in, including a few whom Manny was not able to secure jobs for at […]

…the generation that was born with planes, with the flights full of bags..

The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vásquez

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CBR15 PASSPORT COMPLETED! (Stamp #15: Books from other countries) CBR15 BINGO (South America square: Colombian author, set in Colombia, Translated from Spanish) I was very excited to pick up this book when looking for a contender for the South American bingo square. My husband and I have fallen down the Narcos rabbit hole on Netflix. So, a novel about Bogatá? Mentions Escobar’s hippos? Yes, please and thank you. Antonio is a law professor living in the city he was born and raised in: Bogotá. After […]

Grandma and Felix

Words Between Us by Angela Pham Krans

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When I first saw Words Between Us as an online reader copy and noticed the cover, it made me assume that this was going to be a grandparent/grandchild story and one where their language difficulties would cause problems. However, I was mostly right. This was a grandmother and grandson story, but they are able to speak to each other (both speak Vietnamese). They have a tight and special bond as time goes by and the two of them learn about each other. However, the grandmother […]



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