Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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You’ll write many stories, but every one will be to some greater or lesser degree about this story.

Song of Susannah by Stephen King

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I am, in all honesty and with true sincerity, starting to question reality. Remember when I read The Drawing of the Three (Dark Tower #2) and complained that King needs an editor because he shouldn’t be referring to his own work (the film version of The Shining) as content experienced by new characters in this totally different world? And then I read Wizard and Glass (Dark Tower #4) and I was like, “TUBE NECK HOW DARE YOU?!” but then totally turned around on it, and decided to buy the whole kit and kaboodle, because his pitch turned out to be […]

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7/24/2017 's CBR9 Review No:31 |

Freedom, like everything else, is relative.

The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood

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Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale tells the story of Offred; a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead – a reconstructed United States. Offred witnesses the dissolution of her former way of life and the transformation of society into a totalitarian theocracy. Women are enslaved and stripped of even their most basic rights, they cannot choose who to be in a relationship with, they cannot, read, write, own property, gain employment or even hold on to their own name. Offred is a patronymic, it is a name gifted to the individual to signify ownership, she is of fred, therefore Offred. Prior […]

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7/14/2017 's CBR9 Review No:25 |

‘Gilead’ Is A Balm For Trump’s America

'Gilead' by Marilynne Robinson

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  “This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.” Last week was a hard week for many of us. Facing the reality of Trump’s inauguration, I needed a book that was beautiful, calming, and familiar. As big as my stack of “to be read” books was, I needed something that I knew would give me temporary comfort. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson was really my only option. A favorite of President Obama’s (and a Pulitzer winner), Gilead tells the story of Rev.  John Ames, an Iowa pastor in his seventies who is documenting everything he […]

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1/25/2017 's CBR9 Review No:2 |

Not as transformative as its predecessor, but beautiful nonetheless

Lila by Marilynne Robinson

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About a year ago, I picked up a stunning book that quickly became my go-to book recommendation. Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Gilead was about an elderly, dying pastor. Desperate to leave something of himself behind to his young son, Reverend John Ames composed letter after letter to the boy, talking about his life, his insecurities, his love of family, his faith in God, and his unshakable belief that the world was a beautiful gift. Astonishingly written, Gilead was a meditation on what it meant to be alive. Lila is the third book in the so-called Gilead trilogy, focused on […]

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1/12/2016 's CBR8 Review No:8 |

Was the son of a preacher man

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

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A good friend and I have become book pen pans: we read things, then mail them to each other. It pretty much rules. This book was one she sent to me, with the caveat that it was pretty sad. I struggled through it and put it down many times, but by the time I was done, it was like swallowing unpleasant medicine: good for you in the long run, though a bit hard to get down. This is a quiet novel about life and death in middle America in the 1950s. John Ames is a preacher at the end of […]

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7/19/2015 's CBR7 Review No:13 |

Like a whiff of my mother’s perfume.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

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This book dug up a lot of feelings, so get ready for a bit of autobiography. I grew up religious in the evangelical persuasion.  For many years, until my early 20s, I was a True Believer: pious, traditional, and convinced that we were both right and righteous.  I memorized all the verses to all the hymns.  I read theology books way past my grade level.  I studied the minor prophets.  I was the AWANA poster child. And then I grew up a little and started learning how to see the gray between the black and white, started realizing that many of my […]

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2/5/2015 's CBR7 Review No:3 |


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