Cannonball Read 12

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Her Body and Other Parties

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

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So, I picked this us like…three years ago?  And the first three stories were SO MUCH, that I put it down, and then it sat on my “currently reading” list for a long time, and finally I thought, let’s just do it.  It’s October!  Time for some creepy short stories. These are creepy, but not quite horror.  They are visceral, gothic-adjacent.  Machado’s style is so abrupt and beautiful and precise, but precise like someone is describing something that you can’t quite see, until you see […]

Everyone is Doing Their Bit in Their Own Way

Bisexual Unicorn Vampires Teach Me the Importance of the Vampire Cough by Chuck Tingle

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    Well, I don’t think I could have picked a more tonally different read for my No Money review than my Money one. Chuck Tingle is famous for his eclectic romance shorts between people and exotic cryptic species, people and inanimate objects, and even people and abstract concepts. Recently, he has been inundated with requests for Coronavirus related erotica — which he has refused to do, on the grounds that he doesn’t want to write about things or events that are harming people. So […]

far from the confines of any one Room…

Astray by Emma Donoghue

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not my best title, it’s true- but also not the best collection. I picked this up while looking for different work from Donoghue, and while it was not what I wanted it was a (mostly) pleasant way to spend my time. The idea is cool; this collection is filled with (often very) short stories divided into three “chapters”: Departures, In Transit, and Arrivals and Aftermaths. Each story is set in a different time; most are within the 19th century, but two creep into the 20th […]

On day Turl the constructor put together a machine that could create anything starting with n.

The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem

Guys and Dolls by Damon Runyan

Wind/Pinball 1973 by Haruki Murakami

The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin

My Search for Warren Harding by Robert Plunket

Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell

The Blood of Elves by Andrej Sapkowski

A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters

Flatland by Edwin Abbott

The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin

The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George Higgins

Laughing in the Hills by Bill Barich

Bright Lights Big City by Jay McInerney

The Prince by Niccola Machiavelli

Dear America by Jose Antonio Vargas

The Three Paradoxes by Paul Hornschmeier

How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa

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The Cyberiad – 3/5 Stars This is a collection of short stories by the Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem. Although it’s a collection, it’s more a series of linked stories almost in the form of a novel. If you’ve read a Stanislaw Lem novel, and I think this is my third, you’ll recognize a cognizant effort to question reality, but also the conventions of science fiction in general. Some of his novels like Solaris are highly metaphysical in nature, while authors, like Pirx the Pilot are […]

Any Atwood is a good Gateway to Atwood (CBR12Bingo 2: Gateway)

The Tent by Margaret Atwood

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My absolute far and away favorite Margaret Atwood book is The Blind Assassin, but that’s like the dessert at the end of an excellent meal. You have to work up to it. Handmaid’s Tale is another solid choice, and my own introduction to Margaret Atwood’s awesomenaucity, but I’ve already reviewed it twice for CBR (I think – definitely once).  I love so many of her novels, but for different reasons. So I’m going with The Tent, because the best way to experience Atwood is by […]



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