Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

When someone tries to put all their ideas and research into one novel

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

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Bingo Square: Justice (there’s systemic oppression, a character unjustly punished for crime, ideas about legality vs morality) Southern Lit Book club is starting back up for the fall session and this was the first book. While I enjoyed The Help when it came out, I also think the later critiques were valid, and wasn’t exactly in a huge hurry for this one but book club was a nice excuse to read this. And it’s a bit of mixed reaction – it’s fine but I was […]

A Journey to the Center of Life

Gen: Perjalanan Menuju Pusat Kehidupan by Siddharta Mukherjee; Damaring Tyas W Palar

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Another (daft) reading challenge! A few years back I took the best part of 8 months to read through an Indonesian translation of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer  (Kanker Biografi Suatu Penyakit.) I wasn’t sure if I was going to continue with the rest of the translations of Mukherjee’s books. But Google Play was nothing but persistent.  So there we have it; it was a little less laborious this time, but I have managed to make my way though the translation […]

Something’s a Bit Fishy

Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller

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This was one of the books that was kindly sent to me by andtheIToldYouSos for Book Exchange last year, and I am rather sorry that I have waited until the last minute to review it—it has been a busy year.  Lulu Miller’s Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life is a biography of a rather complex character I had not come across before, and why she sometimes connected with him. I perhaps should have heard of him […]

“Here it is possible to be instantly and completely happy.”

A Countess Below Stairs by Eva Ibbotson

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CBR14Bingo: Bird — in the sense that the main character is in flight first from the Russian Revolution and then is in a more metaphorical flight through her feelings  This was such a wonderful book, I absolutely loved it! I had read Eva Ibbotson’s children’s books when I was younger, in particular The Secret of Platform 13, but I missed that she also did young adult historical romances, which was a huge oversight on my part. Based off how much I loved this book, I […]

An excellent book but not my cup of tea

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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I read Gods of Jade and Shadow and thought it was enjoyable, so I was excited to read Mexican Gothic.  I’m not sure my expectations were met. Noemi is a socialite in the upper-class of 1950s Mexico City. She goes to parties, she flirts, she wears beautiful gowns because she actually enjoys them, and she wants to go university against her family’s wishes. Noemi’s life gets upended when her father asks her to go check on her cousin Catalina who has written a strange and disturbing […]

Things are looking up.

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OK, I’m not really sure where to start with this. Eutopia by David Nickel* is genuinely one of the weirdest books I’ve ever read (in a good way). Thematically it’s about eugenics and creating a super race, but writing that out doesn’t at all capture the story in which those themes are explored. Because this story is just freaking crazy. In 1911, Jason Thistledown’s life is turned upside down when his hometown of Cracked Wheel, Montana is decimated by a nameless plague. Because it’s winter, he has to keep […]



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