Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Shaping the structures of the world

Mr. Pei's Perfect Shapes: The Story of Architect I. M. Pei by Julie Leung

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Mr. Pei’s Perfect Shapes: The Story of Architect I. M. Pei by Julie Leung and illustrated by Yifan Wu is a WOW! book. Not because it is the best book ever (though it is in the top 25 for 2024 so far), but because it is different from what I have been reading and it is about someone that I had never heard of before, or if I had, not someone who had “clicked” as he was not a mainstream name (such as Frank Lloyd […]

A Woman is a Mule, or “What’s in that trunk, Adelaide?”, or a Novel of Second Chances

Lone Women by Victor LaValle

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I met Victor LaValle at a literary fest a few years ago. While handing him a copy of The Changeling, which was his latest novel at the time and the book I had just finished reading, I said to him, “I feel like I’m the person you’re writing these books for. You’re writing these books for me.” And I meant it then and I mean it now. There’s a point at which LaValle started writing the books he knew he was meant to write (he has […]

The most surreal collection I have ever read

Gods of Want: Stories by K-Ming Chang

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I picked up this book for a couple of reasons. One, I really enjoy short story collections. Two, I read a short blurb about this book about that described it as spanning the space between magical realism and fantasy which totally piqued my interest. It was available as an audiobook from my local library, so I checked it out. Typically when I read a collection of short stories, I like to review the collection as a whole as well as give a brief review of […]

Cooking my way through this one

East by Meera Sodha

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I have started to really make an effort to cook my way through a cookbook before looking for a new one; problem is, the cookbook I had planned to start the year with turns out to not be much to my taste. Library browse to the rescue, I think. I picked up East by Meera Sodha, which features both vegan and vegetarian which isn’t a mix you usually see. It focuses on Asia in general, but with a mix of Japanese, Indian, and Chinese cuisines […]

Historical Fluffiness from the Forties

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Lisa See, the author of [i]Snow Flower and the Secret Fan[/i], which was a really good book, has delivered a less interesting and slightly faded remix of the same themes Snow Flower had – namely, friendship and Chinese culture. The characters are wooden: good-girl Grace, scandalous Ruby, cantankerous Helen. The story limps along like a wounded homing pigeon, following the “glamour” of the Forties while skipping any of the realities of the second World War. (It does make an appearance, as do the Japanese internment […]

A disappointing middle book, built around some really neat stuff.

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Oh, man. Okay. What a weird book. (Spoilers for book one ahoy.) So the Trisolarans are coming, man! They’re coming! And humanity has four centuries to prepare. Particles called sophons are monitoring everything on Earth (all communication, written, spoken), and locking down technological and scientific advancement in order to cripple humanity in advance of their invasion. The only place safe from Trisolaran view is the individual human mind. Thus the Wallfacer Project is born. Four men (seriously, no ladies?) are chosen, and given almost unlimited […]



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