Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Hyperion – a modern classic

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

by Leave a Comment

Some books make you think and force you to challenge long held concepts. Some books affect you emotionally and can force you to weep during social situations where it may be inappropriate (reading on the bus, for example). Only a true classic can achieve both of those objectives and Simmons’ Hyperion certainly qualifies. This is a book that has won many awards and been hailed as a classic for over two decades and I am now realizing how influential it is when I watch shows […]

Shoulda Beena Contenda

Button Man by Andrew Gross

by Leave a Comment

Button Man is my first Andrew Gross novel and it may be my last. Not because it’s bad; at three stars, it’s definitely not. But because it’s bland, predictable, uninspiring. And with a set up that’s right in my wheelhouse: gangsters, Prohibition, New York, etc., I should’ve liked it a lot more than I did. Positives: Gross does get the era of 30s New York right. Supposedly, this story was inspired by tales of his family, some of whom were Jewish immigrants from Russia. I don’t […]

The Ghosts of Anti-Semitism Haunt Holland Through Soccer

by 2 Comments

Read for Cannonball Run Bingo. Category: White Whale. The World Cup was on this past summer and anytime I see it, I’m inclined to read more books about soccer. I’m a big sports fan but my interest in soccer really only begun about 12 years ago when, bored out of my mind for the summer of 2006, I watched the World Cup fastidiously. Soccer is now perhaps my fourth favorite sport after baseball, football, and basketball and I’m wearing a New York City FC shirt […]

Throwing a kitten out a window was only a warning shot.

by 2 Comments

Halfway through Moonglow, I caught myself with my hand over my mouth, trying to keep my breath inside my body because the prose was so exceptionally beautiful. I had my worries before reading this book. I have only recently discovered Chabon, and have only otherwise read The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, which was so stunning that it made me want to punch something. There is a lot of hype surrounding Moonglow, and even I only got it by accident from the library on a strict, one […]

Oy Gestalt

by 1 Comment

Chances are that, if you are reading this or any other website concerned with popular culture, you have little more than a passing familiarity with ultra-orthodox Judaism. Like most fundamentalist sects, they mostly keep to themselves. They rarely make the news except for when their behaviour becomes excessive somehow – excessively strict, like when some Rebbe or other gets into hot water for forbidding women Jewish and non-Jewish alike to walk across a public sidewalk or tries to ban children from attending school because their […]

Jesus could tell one helluva knock-knock joke.

by Leave a Comment

I borrowed this from a co-worker almost two years ago, and it took me three attempts to get through it. I think that is less a product of this book’s merit, and a more a result of the reading interests I’ve had since it was placed in my hands. I always had something else that interested me, so this kept moving further and further down my list. Zealot is, I think, pretty clearly the most controversial book I’ve read for CBR. Shortly after publication, I […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo