Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Rich People Problems

You Think It, I'll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld

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  I needed a bit of a palate cleanser, and short story collections almost always fit that bill nicely. I had already read Prep by the same author years ago. I remember liking it, but not really identifying with the characters very well, they were a little too outside my personal experience. I had kind of the same feeling with some of the stories in this collection. A lot of them are really great, and overall I did like this collection, but Sittenfeld does tend to write about very privileged, very well off white people and their very specific problems, […]

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6/13/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:15 |

They had opposed the marriage to my mother, I understood.

Winter Count by Barry Lopez

Cast a Cold Eye by Mary McCarthy

Tell Me a Riddle by Tillie Olsen

A Blue Tale and Other Stories by Marguerite Yourcenar

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Winter Count – 4/5 Stars This is a small collection of mostly atmospheric and impressionistic short fiction, more sketches than stories, by the travel and nature writer Barry Lopez. He is most famous for his longer nonfiction like Of Wolves and Men, Arctic Dreams, and you might be hearing his name more prominently in the next few months based on early reviews of his latest book, Horizon. This book is a series of small fictions that mostly deal with little moments, painted scenes, character sketches, and other little things like this and the effect is somewhat detached, but the writing […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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6/10/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:338 |

How to Vampire Properly

Deadly Assessments by Drew Hayes

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The Fred the Vampire Accountant series was practically my introduction to Drew Hayes, one of my current favorites. It’s also one of the very few series in which I actually enjoy first-person narration. Deadly Assessments is installment number five, and while many things remain the same, there are some distinct differences. The novel is still structured as a series of closely related short stories, and short stories are not my favorite genre, but these I like. In this case, the adventures pick up right where the last novel left off, with Fred’s newly created House of Fred at the center […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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6/8/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:38 |

Just Short of Amazing

Pump Six & Other Stories by Paolo Bagigalupi

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How have I not heard of Paolo Bagigalupi until right now? A colleague of mine recommended “Pop Squad,” and it was life changing. I had to go out and find the whole collection. Bagigalupi’s writing is an amazing mix of darkly twisted but heartfelt prose. His short story collection, Pump Six & Other Stories, covers eleven forays into his speculative imagination. My favorites were “The Fluted Girl,” “Pop Squad,” and “Pump Six,” but all the stories in the collection share a new look on post apocalyptic worlds and the price of immortality. Speculative short fiction is hard to get right; […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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6/3/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:17 |

My original title for this review was “Getting Blingy With It” and I feel like I deserve an award for that or possibly a slap in the face

Cleaning the Gold by Karin Slaughter and Lee Child

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GBI Agent Will Trent is working on a cold case: the murder of a sherrif’s deputy in a small Georgia town, twenty-odd years earlier. His most recent lead sends him undercover at Fort Knox, where his alias Jack Phineas Wolfe (no, really), army dropout, is hired to clean the gold. No, that’s what he’s hired to do. For real. Polish gold bars. This is not a euphemism; he’s inside a room with his suspect, polishing bars and getting sweaty. The suspect, by the way, is Jack Reacher, professional plot device. Will Trent has not seen the Tom Cruise movies so […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "My original title for this review was “Getting Blingy With It” and I feel like I deserve an award for that or possibly a slap in the face"

5/27/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:16 |

It is only natural, of course, that each man should think his own opinions best: the crow loves his fledgling, and the ape his cub.

Utopia by Thomas More

Sonnets by William Shakespeare

Heloise and Abelard by Peter Abelard and Heloise

Fairy Tales by Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm

Fairy Tales by Charles Perrault

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Utopia – 3/5 Stars Have you read Utopia? I hadn’t before this. I decided to read it because it’s one of those books that has always been in the periphery of my life and life’s reading because of how much I’ve read dystopian literature. But I avoided it. It reads a lot like Plato’s Republic and makes references to it, and it’s presented like a would be travelogue. Sort of like later books like Thoma Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia or Jan Morris’s Last Letters from Hav. What’s interesting to me about the book is that it’s contemporary […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "It is only natural, of course, that each man should think his own opinions best: the crow loves his fledgling, and the ape his cub."

5/26/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:296 |

What a pity that I am not an honest man!

Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Thief by Maurice Le Blanc

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I love how inspiring and petty Sherlock Holmes makes fictional detectives. Whether he’s foiling mysteries, showing up and helping Scooby Doo solve crimes, foiling police work, setting impossible standards, what have you! In this book from 1907, French writer Maurice Le Blanc invents someone somewhere in between a detective and a criminal. Mostly he’s there to propose mysteries impossible for others to figure out and to solve puzzles others have failed to solve.  In the first couple stories from this collection, he’s mostly being a master of disguise. His disguises are elaborate and severe. In one, he’s injecting paraffin into […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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5/20/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:282 |

Inspiring a case of the midnight giggles

Calypso by David Sedaris

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This isn’t so much a review, as a love letter to the mind of David Sedaris. You’ll just have to bear with me here… I first heard David Sedaris on the This American Life podcast. His storytelling was always peppered with humour, wry, and occasionally intensely personal. But what captured me most was his voice. It was so mild… verging on prim at times. Which makes his storytelling all the more engaging, as his voice rarely matches his topics. David Sedaris’ delightfully dark and twisted humour is second-to-none. His sister, Amy (who voices Princess Caroline, my favourite character  in Bojack […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Inspiring a case of the midnight giggles"

5/19/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:10 |


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