Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Memories of forgetting disappear

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

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“People – and I’m no exception – seem capable of forgetting almost anything, much as if our island were unable to float in anything but an expanse of totally empty sea.” The Memory Police enforce the forgetting of the things that are disappeared from an unnamed island inhabited by an unnamed author.  From time to time, the people of the island wake up with the restless knowledge that something else is gone and banish any contrary evidence from their homes, towns and minds.  Things disappear, […]

Lies can’t survive mini-golf tour of Queensland’s glitter strip

The Fix by Nick Earls

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The Fix is very much a Nick Earls novel.  Set in Brisbane, with a side trip to the Gold Coast, and rich in textural detail of the inner city and West End.  More up the serious end of his comedy-drama range, but plenty of humour for those who like their Earls funny. This time the misfit everyman protaganist is Josh Lang, driven home to Brisbane from London by the Global Financial Crisis.  He still holds hopes of making it as a journalist, backed by a […]

Lady Charlotte Holmes investigates closer to home

Murder on Cold Street by Sherry Thomas

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Spoiler warning! This is the fifth book in an ongoing series, and as such, this review may and probably will contain spoilers for earlier books. If you’re not caught up, go start at the beginning, with A Study in Scarlet Women.    Official book description: Inspector Treadles, Charlotte Holmes’s friend and collaborator, has been found locked in a room with two dead men, both of whom worked with his wife at the great manufacturing enterprise she has recently inherited.   Rumours fly. Had Inspector Treadles killed […]

Too much for me. You?

The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lukas Rijneveld

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My local book club had a theme this year of reading books from around the world.  I selected this one for our November read as it won a major award- the International Booker Prize for works translated into English, in this case from the Dutch, and I read a review article that really sold it.  The young non-binary author had drawn on their own childhood in a strictly religious dairy farming family, which I could personally relate to.  My book club buddies were also keen. […]

My anaylsis of Murderbot novellas 2-4

Artificial Condidtion: The Murderbot Diaries 2 by Martha Wells

Rogue Protocol: The Murderbot Diaries 3 by Martha Wells

Exit Strategy: The Murderbot Diaries 4 by Martha Wells

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For self care, I started reading the second Murderbot novella the day after the election.  I then proceeded to blitzkrieg my way through the other two novellas and the novel.  Once I was finished I realized I couldn’t separate the books well enough to write reviews.  I was going to give myself review amnesty but instead decided to re-read at least the novellas and write a review immediately after each book. On this re-read, I’ve been thinking about the function of each book.  All Systems […]



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