Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

More Books, More reviews

The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall

Robot Visions by Isaac Asimov

The Between by Tananarive Due

Mad about Shakespeare by Jonathan Bate

Startide Rising by David Brin

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

The Woman Who Killed the Fish by Clarice Lispector

Real Hero Shit by Kendra Wells

We had to Remove this Post by Hanna Bervoets

The King's Indian by John Gardner

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The Machine Gunners – 4/5 I picked up this book because it was on the Guardian’s top 1000 novels list and since I had never heard of it, it sounded interesting. It IS interesting, and it’s more interesting that the title might otherwise suggest to you. There’s some irony in the title because the would-be “machine gunners” are a group of raggedy London kids during the blitz. This group is mad as hell that the blitz has otherwise disrupted their childhood, and the novel does […]

“I know the world will survive us–and in some ways it will be more alive.”

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

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I first heard about The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet (2021) by John Green in my book club. We chose to read it. However, there were problems borrowing it from the library, and some of my friends did not like it. Thus, we ended up moving on without devoting a book club meeting to it. But by this point, I was intrigued, so I borrowed the audio version and listened to it in my car. The Anthropocene Reviewed was read by John Green and is made […]

Teenagers, Turtles, But Not a Mutant Ninja in Sight

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

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High-school student Aza Holmes has a lot on her mind, all the time. Not only is she still dealing with the trauma of her father’s death, but her anxiety is constantly threatening to spiral out of control. So when her rich acquaintance’s father goes missing, Aza is reluctant to get involved. It’s only her best friend Daisy’s desperation for the cash reward that spurs her to re-connect with her old camp friend and start digging into the disappearance. As Aza renews her friendship with Davis […]

“Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown”

Paper Towns (2008) by John Green

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When I was in high school at the turn of the century, while too young for bars and too old and cool for McDonalds, some friends and I would sit cross-legged on the platform between railway tracks at the train station of our town and play ‘pulse murder’. This was a game where you sat in a circle, and held hands, and one person was the murderer (I forget how they were assigned), and sent a number of squeezes, or pulses, around the circle. If […]

Pay attention to what you pay attention to

The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green

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Joining Cannonball Read has meant that I’m now part of the group of people reviewing books. Here’s a very obvious statement – reviewing something is quite different from simply enjoying that thing, even if you naturally have thoughts about it, maybe even sometimes discuss it with other people. To commit yourself to a few hundred (or more) words about a topic, and then to rate it – and share that with other people – it’s both a work that is very internal (we really must […]

A good young adult book that I probably read too late in life.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green & David Levithan

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I’m rounding down on this one for now, after weeks (months) of letting it sit in limbo because I couldn’t make up my mind how I felt about it. But this is a true 3.5 star book right here. Parts of it I loved and found very funny and charming and parts of irritated the hell out of me. The ending is very heartwarming and the characters are ultimately lovable. I think I might have just missed my window on loving this one. Too bad, […]



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