Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“He is a person, complicated and confused. Just like you.”

Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin

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Ayesha at Last is a retelling the story of Pride and Prejudice featuring the titular Ayesha, a Muslim woman in her late twenties who has put aside her dreams of poetry and just finished a career change to become a teacher, financed by her wealthy uncle who has been financially supportive of her family since her father’s death including moving them to Canada and giving them the house they share with her grandparents. She is single and being passed on the proverbial marriage mart by […]

Updating the classics

Much Ado About Nada by Uzma Jalaluddin

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Smart Bitches Summer Bingo: Retelling (modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion) CBR16 Bingo: Bollywood (set in Canada with desi protagonists) The absolutely last place Nada Syed wants to be is the big annual Muslim convention in downtown Toronto. She is nearly 30 years old, single and lives at home with her parents and two brothers. If she goes to the convention, there is a high chance that she’ll run into her old mentor, formerly her mother’s best friend. She might also run into her mentor’s […]

Perils of Journalism

I Am On the Hit List: A Journalist's Murder and the Rise of Autocracy in India by Rollo Romig

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Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: Bollywood. This is a true crime novel about a journalist in India who was murdered, as well as the uniqueness of south Indian culture and the autocratic rule of Modi. Despite it being one of the largest countries in the world, I know very little about India. I knew Britain treated it like garbage for centuries and that, thanks in part to Gandhi, it won its freedom in 1947. I knew that there are tensions between Hindus and Muslims. […]

Dinner and a Show is more about the show and getting your own dinner

Bollywood Kitchen by Sri Rao

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Bingo 8: Bollywood Book title: Bollywood Kitchen. Explanation for square done, except to point out that this book is not a book about food in Bollywood movies, it’s a book about food inspired by how the author remembers or perceives a handful of contemporary Bollywood films. So that means things like a family drama film paired with a Thanksgiving tinged family dinner (spiced roast chicken, sweet/savory pumpkin, and cashew fried rice); or the Shakespeare adaptation of Hamlet paired with butternut squash soup and Himalayan shepherds […]

A collection that has aged well

Interpreter of Maladies: Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri

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Cbr16bingo Bollywood (Bingo #1) This debut collection of short stories from Jhumpa Lahiri won a Pulitzer Prize in 2000. Interpreter of Maladies contains nine stories that deal with topics such as troubled marriages, the difficulties of adjusting to life in the US for Indian immigrants, and women who are outsiders (and therefore problematic). I found myself deeply moved by these stories which, 25 years after their first publication, provide a compassionate and brutally honest view of their characters’ lives and choices. These are people who […]

“Thanks, Shah Rukh”

My So-called Bollywood Life by Nisha Sharma

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Nisha Sharma’s My So-called Bollywood Life is a light, breezy YA romance with Bollywood movies as the not terribly well woven thread through the book. The protagonist is Winnie Mehta, an ambitious high schooler who is co-chair of the school film club. She is recovering from a broken heart because her ‘soulmate,’ who she believes was destined for her because of her horoscope (which identified her soulmate down to the first letter of his name), betrayed her. Despite the horoscope and the periodic dance sequences […]



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