Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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I don’t know Weather I liked it hahahahahaha

Weather by Jenny Offil

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Full disclosure: I read this, apparently, in 2016, and wrote a little about it. Then I read it again a couple of months ago, after reading somewhere that Jenny Offil and I are the same age and went to the same university (not at the same time) — totally irrelevant, but it brought me back to the book. Came to actually post something, and saw some more evidence of my shitty memory. Soooo two of the following paragraphs are new. If this doesn’t count, that’s […]

A Disappointing and Weirdly Removed Second Book in the Trilogy

Early Warning by Jane Smiley

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I’ve read the first book in this trilogy (Some Luck) two or three times and really enjoy its structure and descriptions of farm and internal life. I therefore read this second book with interest, but I don’t think it was as good as the first one and I don’t think I would reread it. I’m still going to read the third one because these are transporting and feel like you’re watching a soap opera, so it’s good train commute reading. Not bad enough to stop […]

It’s not a fish, dammit! (Sorry, I needed to get that off my chest.)

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I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I started reading Moby Dick. Of course everyone is familiar with Ahab and the Pequod and “Call me Ishmael,” possibly the most famous opening line in American literature. I knew that Starbuck was more than a source for satisfying my frappuccino craving and, thanks to Dana Scully’s ill-fated pomeranian, I knew there was a character called Queequeg, but that was about it. Opening to page 1 of this 135-chapter behemoth, I was pretty much a blank slate. My […]

Women Can be Scary Part 2: Shirley Jackson

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Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) was an American writer known for novels such as The Haunting of Hill House and short stories such “The Lottery,” which has horrified readers since 1948. To this day I am haunted by the short film version of “The Lottery” (with Ed Begley, Jr.!) which Sr. Mary Cabrini showed in my American Studies course in high school. The 1962 novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle is not exactly scary like Jackson’s other works, but it is disturbing and feels like […]



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