Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Love: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Somehow: Thoughts on Love by Anne Lamott

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Somehow: Thoughts on Love is a collection of Anne Lamott’s thoughts on love and all its complexities. This was the second book that I have read by this author, but the first that I have listened to on audiobook. She reads the novel herself and I really enjoyed that. Especially with a topic as complex as love, having her narrate the text made me feel like she was there and we were having a discussion. Each chapter takes a look at a different aspect of […]

Anne Lamott (1)

Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year by Anne Lamott

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“I woke up with a start at 4:00 one morning and realized I was very very pregnant.” One of the trends I’ve noticed about writing about pregnancy more recently is some attempt to remove the sort of automated cultural responses to what pregnancy, birth, and motherhood are. What I mean by this is that more recently books about motherhood (especially memoirs and not say, baby or parenting books) have tried to be more honest about some of the different feelings people have regarding these experiences. […]

A Classic and a (Maybe?) New Classic

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

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This English professor finally got around to reading Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott’s classic book of advice about writing. In all honesty, when I read for fun I gravitate toward genre fiction–mysteries, detective novels, romance, etc. I like a good story. I was surprised, then, by how much I enjoyed just luxuriating in Lamott’s prose. It is by turns hilarious, touching, and, most importantly, honest. For example, she includes an entire chapter about professional jealousy that I at first found odd until I found myself relating […]

More odds and ends

The Hummingbird's Gift by Sy Montgomery

Stitches by Anne Lamott

Poetic Justice by Amanda Cross

Insurrecto by Gina Apostelo

The Grass Dancer by Susan Power

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth

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The Hummingbird’s Gift – 4/5 Stars Mostly a published long essay, but still a compelling story about hummingbirds in general, but specifically those hummingbirds that become abandoned, injured, lost, or otherwise in need of human care to be rehabilitated and brought up to health enough to be part of natural life again. In this book, we find out that hummingbirds exist upon a series of contrasts. They are quite small, but fierce fighters. In the descriptions of the fighting from this book, two birds locked […]

Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott (1994)

Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott

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CBR13Bingo – Self-Care A collection of essays and memoir pieces connected to writing that shares wisdom and thoughts on both writing and publishing. Mostly this collection is focused on publishing fiction, the slight irony being that I would argue that this book, in solitude, and maybe some of the nonfiction recent pieces, are 100% of how people think of Anne Lamott’s writing in general, and not her fiction. That said, the advice is funny and humane and solid throughout. I wish Anne Lamott would just […]

“But so many of us can be soothed by writing: think of how many times you have opened a book, reading one line, and said, “Yes!” And I want to give people that feeling too, of connection, communition

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

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For a long while, I’ve said that I was going to write a book. It has always been the thing I could do if I wanted to, but I didn’t want to actually try because DUH then I would actually have to prove that I could do the thing I so nonchalantly knew I could do. Makes sense, right? See also “fear of failure” and “you can’t fail if you don’t have a plan” and you’ll be downright cozy with some of my life mantras. […]



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