Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“You’ll light your own bloody self on fire if you have to. And then you can pat yourself on the back and tell yourself you knew it all along. Congratulations.”

The Trespassser (Dublin Murder Squad, #6) by Tana French

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Short review for a book that has too much to talk about for me without writing a dissertation. I just find Antoinette Conway to be such an interesting narrator, and I love the way French plays off Conway’s weaknesses with the murder of Aislinn Murray. I had actually forgotten almost everything about this book, except how thorny Conway was as a narrator, and how her paranoia SPOILERS ended up being mostly unjustified END SPOILERS. I had also forgotten how angry Conway made me in her […]

I read an entire book about Irish tweed and I think I liked it

Irish Tweed: History, Tradition, Fashion by Vawn Corrigan

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As a kid I despised history. To me, it was just which war happened what year, and which person invaded that country another year. Honestly the western focus on war and conquering is deeply problematic and ruins so many people’s interest in the past. But the past is so important – it shapes who we are today.  The best way to learn about history, I find, is through culture. Go to any exhibition on fashion through time and most of it deals with fashion as […]

A country without a language is a country without a soul

The Speckled People: A Memoir of a Half-Irish Childhood by Hugo Hamilton

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The speckled people is a memoir of a childhood in Ireland in the 1950’s, growing up between languages. Hugo’s mother is a german emigrant and his father is an Irish nationalist determined that his children will revive the Irish language. Hugo himself is just a boy who wants to fit in with the other kids – who all speak English. The book is written in a soft language, floating in and out of the memories of a young boy. His father is a brutal tyrant […]

Even better on re-read.

Broken Harbor (Dublin Murder Squad, #4) by Tana French

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This is one of my favorites from this series, and I’m kicking myself for not writing this review immediately upon finishing it for the second time, because I got something different out of it this time than I did on my first read. But I don’t remember what that was! The only notes I left myself consisted of the temporary review I left over on Goodreads, which read, “This one whomped me good.” So helpful. Maybe it was something about Scorcher and his black and […]

A multi-voiced anthology of original texts, translations and responses

Migrant Shores: Irish, Moroccan and Galician Poetry by Manuela Palacios

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Migrant Shores: Irish, Moroccan and Galician Poetry edited by Manuela Palacios was a choice for a local poetry reading group. I was looking for something to expand my poetry reading, I gave it a try. What came out of the reading was several months of trying to figure out what was happening and what the meanings of everything was. Most poems you can feel and hear the theme of immigration, emigration and migration. Some of the people had to leave homes due to wars and […]



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