Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Pretty people doing not pretty things

The Great Gatsby: The Graphic Novel by Fred Fordham

The Great Gatsby: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by K. Woodman-Maynard

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cbr12bingo The Roaring 20’s The Roaring 20’s probably would not be the Roaring 20’s if not for The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I am not going to go all English Lit on you and say the meaning of the story but will tell you it is about several 20-to 30-something rich, spoiled, brats (editorial comment) and their boredom. You can say that our narrator is unreliable, judgmental, the whole works. Or not. But in the end, what it is all about is people […]

Oooh, you make me live (CBR12Bingo: Friendship)

The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua

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I’m sure that tagging this as fiction and non fiction seems confusing to anyone who has not read this book. It’s a strange one, but a damn good one. The first dozen or so pages are 100% non-fiction, devoted to the life of Ada Lovelace, the daughter of the “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” Lord Byron and the absolute last person in the world who should have married him, a woman who then raised Ada alone and kept her from following in her father’s […]

Was It Really Friendship?

Mrs. Lincoln & Mrs. Keckley: The Remarkable Story of the Friendship Between a First Lady and a Former Slave by Jennifer Fleischner

Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave & Four Years in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley

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  While noodling on the internet one day, I came across an article about Mary Lincoln’s personal dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckley. A former slave from Maryland who’d bought her own freedom, Keckley was a master mantua-maker who got herself the coveted position of dressmaker to the president’s wife. There was a little link at the bottom of the article about Keckley’s memoir, and it was too enticing to pass up. Happily, even though it was published in 1868, my library had a copy of it! The […]

The film is WAY better than the book

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

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#CBR12 Bingo: Adaptation (was turned into a movie in 2015 – the film is way better than the book) (Can also be read for Debut) Official book description: Greg Gaines is the last master of high school espionage, able to disappear at will into any social environment. He has only one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time making movies, their own incomprehensible versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics.   Until Greg’s mother forces him to rekindle his childhood friendship with Rachel.   Rachel has been […]

You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain

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CBR12Bingo – Friendship This is probably the tenth or so time I’ve read Huckleberry Finn, but the first time I have read it directly after reading the Adventure of Tom Sawyer, which changes things a little. Having re-read Tom Sawyer just previous to this, the very first thing that stands out is how much more the book seems to want to be doing. Tom Sawyer is about childhood and lampooning both the ways we talk about childhood, treat children, and write about childhood. Huckleberry Finn […]

Thank you, Emmalita, for yet another good romance recommendation! (BINGO #1)

The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon

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#CBR12 Bingo: Fresh Start (the beginning of a new series, AND my first book by this author) It would also work really well for Cannonballer Says, Money! and Friendship I got a free ARC of this on Netgalley in return for an unbiased review. I also liked the book enough that I have now paid money to own it. Samiah Brooks is getting ready for a date, while her pregnant sister reads her hilarious updates from another woman’s disastrous first date on Twitter. Samiah is mortified to discover […]



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