Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“Comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love.”

Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M. Valente

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My initial reaction upon finishing Comfort Me With Apples was “wtf was this.” I’m not sure what I was going to rate it or say about it before my book club meeting, but something one of the other members said during the meeting sort of flipped a little switch in my brain and clarified my feelings and thoughts about it. This was a weird effing book. Especially if you go in thinking you know what the main premise is, but you really don’t as it turns out, […]

Pilgrim’s Progress, Or Why It’s Important to Follow Directions

The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan

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The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan My rating: 3 of 5 stars Growing up in a Christian faith-community, I had heard off and on of “Pilgrim’s Progress”. No one I knew had actually read it, but the gist of the story was passed around. I’ve been trying to revamp my British literature course and my Enlightenment/Interregnum period needs some work. This book happens to fall into that period and since I teach at a Christian private school I figured it might be a good fit. […]

The End Justifies the Means

Radicalized by Cory Doctorow

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Radicalized by Cory Doctorow is four short stories turned into a novel. I checked this out from the library. The cover grabbed me, it is black and white with four red and black images, a piece of toast with a no sign marked through it, a person in a heroic pose with a cape trailing behind them, a pill with a hand reaching up through it, and a red skull on a black background. I enjoyed “Unauthorized Bread” about digital rights management. The heroine is […]

Don’t be a dictator

Animal Farm by George Orwell

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“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” Animal farm is one of those classics that are pretty much absorbed and ingrained in society. It tells the story of some animals on a farm becoming deeply enraged about the unfairness as they do all the work and the farmer reaps the reward. They stage a revolution and rename the farm “Animal farm.” They adopt the Seven Commandments of Animalism, the most important of which is, “All animals are equal.” And for […]

Kazuo Ishiguro wades into the fantasy genre, but it’s not the fantasy that’s the problem.

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

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Well. This was a book. No, just kidding. Sort of. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. Honestly, I subtracted almost a whole star just because Axl kept calling his wife “princess” every other sentence. (That’s not an exaggeration. Every other sentence. Sometimes EVERY sentence.) For context, you should know that I’ve read three previous Ishiguro novels: The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go, and We Were Orphans. I disliked We Were Orphans pretty strongly, and liked Never Let Me Go (probably not as […]

If you’re looking for a totally immersive reading experience, here you go, but be prepared to work for it.

S. by J.J. Abrams & Doug Dorst

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The first thing to know about S. — J.J. Abrams’ and Doug Dorst’s literary experiment slash ode to the written word — is that you get out of it what you want to get out of it. If you want to get all crazy conspiracy theory and puzzle out a bunch of mysteries, you can. If you just want to sit back and be immersed in the story, with a little brain power, you can. If you want to engage somewhere in between those two levels, […]



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