Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“A man without rights in this world is not freed from his responsibilities.”

Amnesty by Aravind Adiga

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My mom is an unrepentant fast-forwarder. Any movie montage, car chase, fight scene, or any extended section of a movie with no dialogue is gonna get fast-forwarded through. (I grew up thinking this was totally normal and acceptable, and have had several boyfriends go “WAIT, what are you DOING?!?!” when I started fast-forwarding through a scene I thought was skippable.) This book, while totally lovely, could definitely have used a fast-forward button. Danny (Dhananjaya) is from Sri Lanka, living illegally in Australia. He came on […]

Because language has suffered enough…

Death Sentence: The Decay of Public Language by Don Watson

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When I first read the example ‘The competition policy reforms further improve the performance of government business enterprises through a program of regulation review, enhanced prices oversight, application of competitive neutrality principles and procedures for structural reform of public monopolies,’ on p65 of Death Sentence, I didn’t quite get the author’s point. I mean, I understood what it meant. But the next example of language spelled out exactly why a person like me needed to read this book. ‘Language is a key issue of access […]

We built BrisVegas on rock and roll

Pig City by Andrew Stafford

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  Pig City chronicles a brief yet transformative period of Brisbane life, from the 70s through to the 90s, but this is no ordinary history book. The story is told mainly through the lens of music and politics and shows how the two influenced each other in a time when Brisbane was still coming of age.  The ‘BrisVegas’ tag jokingly likens the country town where there’s not much to do (as Brisbane was up until the late eighties) with Las Vegas. Beginning in the seventies, the […]

Nonetheless, I still want to be a lighthouse keeper

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman

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I read Ahab’s Wife at an impressionable age and it filled me with a deep hatred of whales (unfair to them, I know) and a fierce desire to be a lighthouse keeper. Despite many things keeping me from a serious pursuit of such an endeavor (I keep moving further and further away from the ocean, the aforementioned hatred of whales, my reliance on the internet…) I will always jump at the chance to read something lighthouse adjacent. The Light Between Oceans starts off strong- a quiet and […]

I was not as entertained as many were

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

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Don Tillman is a genetics professor at a university in Australia who has decided that it is time to find a wife.  He has tried dating before to disastrous results, and stumbles upon the idea that a questionnaire will help mitigate the disasters.  He asks a fellow professor and friend, Gene, to help him. Gene is a notorious playboy, trying to sleep with women from as many countries as possible.  He is also an ass for not seeing that the “open marriage” he has with […]

The legal feminist memoir I’ve been waiting for…

Eggshell Skull by Bri Lee

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Bri Lee’s honest story has held me captive through an awful bout of influenza in the last 4 days. Nightly, I’ve taken to waking up drenched in fevered sweats and been incapable of falling back to sleep. This flu season is not mucking around. But it’s been an honour to drag my disgusting virus-riddled self to the couch, turn on the muted living-room lamp, and read her words til the sound of birdsong let me know the sun was coming up.  Her journey from law […]



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