Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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They Knew Each Other By the End

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

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Read as part of CBR13bingo: flora. There are trees and plants on the cover.  If I were to teach a class on creative writing, I would without question assign one of Liane Moriarty’s books. The only other one I’ve read of hers was Big Little Lies, mostly because her accuracy on relationship dynamics is so painfully on point that I can’t stand it. I imagine I’ll finish her catalog someday. Whether I do or not, she’s a writer that perspective writers should study. Her characters are so […]

An excellent, atmospheric Australian mystery and family drama.

The Lost Man by Jane Harper

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This is my favorite of Jane Harper’s four books. The setting is outrageous, and such a good place for something like this to go down, even more so because it’s a real place in the actual world and not, like, an alien planet or something. This is some ‘the year 2133 on Mars’ kind of shit, except it’s now and it’s Australia. I just couldn’t get over how they all live on this giant plot of land as big as my state, and our main […]

One Day in February

The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire by Chloe Hooper

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Australia gets a lot of coverage overseas when it comes to our devastating bushfires. The collective bushfires of January 2020 were especially notable for their sense of apocalypse. But as horrific as the 2020 fires were, the summer of 2009 was even more deadly. February 7 was a particularly devastating day for my home state of Victoria; known as ‘Black Saturday,’ the extreme weather conditions helped fan the flames of over 400 individual fires, killing 173 people, and impacting many, many more. I had friends […]

Let’s just focus on the main story, the very good dugs, and Gladys Who Has Seen Some Shite

Paper & Blood by Kevin Hearne

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Bingo 15: New Series Book 1 of the Ink & Sigil series (Ink & Sigil) came out in August 2020; book 2, presented momentarily, came out in 2021, just under a year later. It’s a recent enough publication that I was actually a little surprised to see it in the library. I was glad to see it though, both because I enjoyed book 1 and also because I was a little stuck for this square, but no longer. Paper & Blood picks up about where […]

An Unbelievable Life

Born Again Blakfella. by Jack Charles; Namila Benson

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  Jack Charles certainly started Born Again Blakfella with a memorable scene. As a beloved actor in Australia and noted First Nations activist, you would think that he would start by drawing attention to his achievements in both of these fields. But Charles decided to start his memoir with a facet of his life that didn’t lead to him getting glowing reviews in the newspapers: “It’s the middle of the night and I’m huddled over, dragging my dilly bad, which is chock full of all […]

Turns out, she’s still a genius

Turns out, I'm fine by Judith Lucy

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Last year, Judith Lucy was overwhelmed and dying (according to the name of her podcast) but in 2021 it turns out, she’s fine. Which I am supremely happy to hear, because she’s been one of my favourite comedians since the 90s, not long after she first hit Australia’s scene. This is Lucy’s memoir of a pretty shitty series of life events that she wrangles, as always, into great material. With this book however she goes a bit further in trying sort out life’s shit and […]



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