Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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The shade of a tree is sweeter shared

The Shade Tree by Suzy Lee

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CBR15Passport country   If you like folktales and legends, The Shade Tree is a great one to add to your collection. It takes a classic Korean folktale and updates it, while keeping a classic feeling. Suzy Lee’s story shows how a traveler tricks a rich man into selling him something that in the end, probably cannot be owned, but due to perception and the entitlement, the rich man thinks if he wants, he can own. And though he might have wealth he is lacking in […]

Blind Date with a Book

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

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Last spring I read about something called “Blind Date With a Book” that sounded like fun. Libraries apparently do them, and it involves choosing a book, wrapped in paper so you cannot see the title, based on some descriptive words (mystery, romance, other voices, etc). It’s a fun way to change up your reading and maybe try something you wouldn’t have picked for yourself. Over on Etsy, a number of sellers offer this same service for a range of fees and I decided to give […]

Name. Time. Hell.

The Hellbound Volume one by Yeon San-Ho

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This, to say the least, is an unusual book.  What is/was the point? Who are these people that grace the pages? Why do they do what they do? (Okay, the officer who had his wife murdered, and his son, make sense, but still). When is this book taking place? (Is it now? Or a future timeline? Or even an alternative timeline?) So many questions, so few answers in The Hellbound Volume one manga graphic novel. The creators, Yeon San-Ho, Choi Gyu-Seok, Danny Lim (translation) and […]

The bond between mother and daughter, the joy of shared food, and the devastating loss of a parent – CBR14 Bingo: Heart

Crying in H-Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner

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CBR14 Bingo: “Heart” –  In this heartbreaking memoir, Michelle Zauner shares her love for her mother and their connection through a love of food. Last year I heard on NPR an interview with Zauner, a Korean American, when she released her debut book, Crying in H-Mart: A Memoir.  I was instantly interested in small part because I too shop at H-Mart, a Korean grocery chain in the United States.  Then I became engrossed by listening to Zauner talk about her mother’s death and food.  I […]

Don’t Go West

The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War by James D. Bradley

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Like a lot of Americans, I learned the broad strokes about the Pacific theater in World War II. The Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor. Attacked us! Obviously, we couldn’t just stand pat. So we warred with them from island-to-island until we had no choice but to drop the atomic bomb and end the war. They were the aggressor and it was all their fault. I’m reluctant to call this narrative propaganda. Japan did attack us. But the history of the war in the Pacific […]

A Tale as old as Time

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

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At the turn of the century, a cleft-lipped, clubfooted boarding house owner in rural Korea marries fifteen year old Yangjin, the third daughter of an impoverished farmer. She is no beauty, but neither is Hoonie, her husband. They’re a good match. Together, they run a boarding house in a small, seaside town on an idyllic but poor part of the Korean coast. They try to have children, and after their first three babies die their fourth, a daughter named Sunja, is born. Hoonie dotes upon […]



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