Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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August 2023 Leftovers

Red Cat by Peter Spiegelman

You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters by Kate Murphy

Gangland by Chuck Hogan

Death and the Good Life by Richard Hugo

You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Alexa Coe

Britt-Marie Was Here by Frederik Backman

Occupied City by David Peace

Sleepless City by Reed Farrel Coleman

Bad Summer People by Emma Rosenblum

Run Time by Cathy Ryan Howard

Loyalty by Lisa Scottoline

None Of This Is True by Lisa Jewell

The Club by Ellery Lloyd

Not in Bronxville by Rita K. Farrelly

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Unquestionably the worst month in the calendar. Red Cat*** It’s not the writer’s fault that I just finished Robert Kolker’s excellent Lost Girls in light of the apprehension of the man they think is the Gilgo Beach murderer. But my threshold for murdered sex workers was low going into this. I only finished it because it filled a specific square for my library summer reading game. It’s not bad; the mystery is done well but it doesn’t stand out as far as the rest of […]

Cats, Ninja and a turnip called Jack

Kitten Ninja  by Colleen AF Venable

Lila and the Jack-O'-Lantern: Halloween Comes to America by Nancy Churnin

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I like Halloween, kittens, and graphic novels. I found two different books that fit all categories, but in stages; neither has all the things I like.  I read both via on line and both are future publications, though the second is due late September 2024 so soon. Kitten Ninja by Colleen AF Venable and Marcie Colleen is a graphic novel I read online. It is due in late February 2024, but will be worth the wait. It is a cute, younger aimed book for those who […]

Through the Desert

Frontera by Julio Anta, Jacoby Salcedo

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CBR 15 Bingo: Guide – Guillermo has spent his afterlife guiding migrants from Mexico safely across the Sonoran Desert. Mateo is desperate to return to his life in Arizona after he and his family are deported back to Mexico, but that desperation makes him reckless. Lost in the desert, he must rely on someone he’s not even sure exists if he’s going to make it to safety. This is a graphic novel about Mateo, a teenage boy who is trying to cross the border into […]

CBR15 Bingo: You are Here

De kaller meg ulven (They Call Me the Wolf) by Zeshan Shakar

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#CBR15 Passport Challenge: Books from different countries (Norway) CBR15 Bingo: You are Here (It’s set in Norway, where I am) 15-word-review: A son constantly yearning for more social mobility tries to understand his elderly father, unsuccessfully. Official book description (translated from Norwegian by me): “Why didn’t they have more? I remember thinking after my grandmother died. They were from here, Norwegian, shouldn’t they have had more things? Those things other Norwegian parents and grandparents have, at least a simple cabin, the kind without power or […]

Oh, you mean the GANGS of New York

Rogues' Gallery by John Oller

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I was jonesing for a New York City gangster tale last week. I finally started Herbert Asbury’s Gangs of New York but quit when I realize that the book is less glorious embellishment and more fan fiction. Frustrated, I looked for a substitute and then remembered I purchased John Oller’s Rogues’ Gallery on a lark. It aspires to be a corrective to Asbury’s highly fictionalized accounting which was held as a historical standard for years. Oller is more scholarly than smooth but this might scratch the itch if you’re […]

“Sometimes it seems like writing is the only way I keep from hurting.”

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

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CBR14 Bingo: Verse (the whole book is written as poems) Xiomara and her brother Xavier (who Xiomara mostly refers to as Twin) are miracle babies, born late in life to their parents, who never believed they would have children. Growing up in Harlem, New York, they’re nevertheless part of the Dominican culture of their immigrant parents. Their mother is deeply religious and was possibly going to be a nun before she met their dad, whose wandering eye meant he got around plenty before marrying. While […]



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