Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the Yay for YA Discussion About YA Books Now  

Mixed Bag Catch Up

Samarkand by Amin Maalouf

Shiloh by Shelby Foote

Blind Willow Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami

The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton

CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders

Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl

by Leave a Comment

Samarkand – 4/5 Stars This book immediately wonder how many novels have Omar Khayyam as a major or main characters. So in this way, being shown in careful detail and with loving care how and why Omar Khayyam is such an important person, cultural touchstone, and inspiration to such a huge part of the world is itself a gift that this novel offers. In addition to this, the sense of adventure in this novel that is created in the opening sections, and then carried over […]

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders (2021)

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders

by Leave a Comment

I do think this book is pretty wonderful in a lot of ways. I also thinking it’s a solution in search of a problem in some ways, or maybe a great idea struggling for an audience. The premise here is that George Saunders, along with being a writer, is an MFA professor who teaches creative writing. If you’ve ever taken a creative writing class in college, you are usually treated to someone who clearly sees fiction (or poetry, or nonfiction) from a much different perspective […]

The redemptive power of empathy

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

by Leave a Comment

Lincoln in the Bardo is a fitting novel to read during November, the month of the dead. Set in a Washington, DC, cemetery in February 1862, the novel combines real historical events and an imagined spiritual realm. This is a story about death and loss, moving on (or not), and redemption. As in the film The Sixth Sense, the dead of Oak Hill Cemetery don’t know they’re dead (or if they do, they are not saying so). These souls refer to their coffins as “sick […]

As our eyes met I saw that she had spoken in earnest.

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

by 1 Comment

I have been avoiding/suspect of this novel since it came out. I tried to read it and didn’t like it so I stopped. Then, I got the audiobook and also didn’t want to keep going. I realize now that the time I was trying to read it I was injured and in pain, so maybe that was a factor. Had it not won the Booker Prize and had I not found myself thinking I should finish all the Booker novels, well I might now be […]

Guys, I tried SO HARD

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

by 1 Comment

I tried SO HARD to read this book. It’s is on everyone’s recommended list, and currently hold as 3.78 rating on Goodreads, which is generally a good sign. I tried reading the hard copy a few months ago when I first became aware of it, and totally failed to get into it. So I tried again to listen to the audio version — I figured I was on a road trip, and would have nothing distracting me. And the audio version has basically the best list […]

Of course it would cost something, but he was an expert in cutting corners; and when there were no more corners left he would make circles rounder.

by Leave a Comment

The Magic Barrel – 5/5 Stars This story collection came out in 1959 and contains the well known title story, but also has several other very good stories. It won the National Book Award as well. As I have previously stated in reviews, the age of the writer (here in a kind of debut effort) lends itself to an already mature and thoughtful work (this was also true for many of Raymond Chandler’s stories as well as the story collection A Lucky Man by Jamel […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo