Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

You are all Dead Spirits

Warra Warra Wai: How Indigenous Australians discovered Captain Cook, and what they tell about the coming of the Ghost People by Darren Rix; Craig Cormick

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So as a school kid in Australia back in the nineties, I remember being taught, like many of my peers, the Captain Cook ‘discovered’ Australia. Except that wasn’t quite true, was it? To add all the qualifiers, Cook and his crew are probably best described as the first set of Europeans to visit the east coast of Australia …after the dutch sort of poked around in the west.  But very little discussion time was given to the people that had lived in Australia for tens […]

Life is always happening and has happened and will happen

Question 7 by Richard Flanagan

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One of Chekhov’s earliest stories was a parody of mental arithmetic questions asked of schoolchildren, of which Chekhov’s question 7 is typical: Wednesday, June 17, 1881, a train had to leave station A at 3am in order to reach station B at 11pm; just as the train was about to depart, however, an order came that the train had to reach station B by 7pm. Who loves longer, a man or a woman? Who? You, me, a Hiroshima resident or a slave labourer? And why […]

Suffers from classic sophomore novel syndrome

The Sirens by Emilia Hart

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Weyward was one of my favorite reads last year so I was excited when I saw that Emilia Hart had a new novel releasing this year. It’s always hard, though, to follow up a hugely successful novel because of the expectations it creates. I know it’s about the journey, not the destination, and as someone that reads a lot, I can often foresee where certain plot points might go. In fact, I think Emilia Hart expects that her readers see exactly how some things are […]

“You won’t necessarily win against fate, but you should at least put up a fight.”

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

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I am a huuuuuge fan of Liane Moriarty. I came to her as I’m sure a lot of people did, with her breakout hit Big Little Lies and I’ve never looked back. I am yet to find a book of hers that doesn’t completely capture my attention, as I forego all responsibilities and obligations in favor of reading. This book was no different, as it had me spellbound, though it was a bit more of a headscratcher than her previous books, with more mystical and magical elements […]

“You won’t necessarily win against fate, but you should at least put up a fight.”

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

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On a flight from Hobart to Sydney, a strange woman goes up the aisle delivers unnerving predictions to the passengers about when and how they will die. At first the passengers dismiss it as some kind of stunt, try to put it out of their minds – until the first deaths begin. When I reveal that I enjoy reading tarot cards, people inevitably ask if I actually think I can predict the future with them. Actually I am not really sure if one can, but […]

Moving Distractions. Or, When Ronnie got Salty

Fair Game: The Incredible Untold Story of Scientology in Australia by Steve Cannane

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I’ve been moving around a lot in the last few years, and I’ve developed some little rituals over the process. My last move was only a month ago, and  like so many of my moves, it involved extended amounts of time dicking around with Ikea furniture and getting rather frustrated. I have an audiobook especially for that task. It must have been eight or nine years ago now, but I had spend the best part of an afternoon trying to put a damned bed together […]



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