Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Definitely an old series–that holds up really well

Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar

Wayside School is Falling Down by Louis Sachar

Wayside School Gets A Little Stranger by Louis Sachar

Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom by Louis Sachar

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Old Series: the newest installment in this series comes 25 years(!) after the last, and 44(!!!) years since the first A mild content warning for some old school “humor” around kids being fat which didn’t age the best but is also not used in a bullying way Sideways Stories from Wayside School In advance of reading the new(!) fourth installment in this delightful series, I thought I’d re-read the original three in rapid succession. I have fond memories of these books and their particular brand […]

Ten mostly good fiction books

Normal people by Sally Rooney

Conversations with friends by Sally Rooney

The amateur marriage by Anne Tyler

The pull of the stars by Emma Donoghue

Middle England by Jonathan Coe

Holes by Louis Sachar

The princess bride by William Goldman

The legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

The great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

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Normal people by Sally Rooney I’d watched the series before I read the book and yet the series didn’t put me off reading it. I suffered through it, just as I suffered through this book about Marianne and Connell. Two kids who go to the same school, and then later on to the same university, their lives entwined. We witness their strange dance as they struggle to communicate plainly with each other and fail again and again. Marianne is a broken person. Connell is sort […]

You’ve Got to Go Dig Those Holes

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I remember first reading Holes when I was in the 5th grade; it was always taken out of the library and I had to put myself on the waiting list to check it out. And I absolutely loved it back then. A while after this, the movie adaptation came out, and since then I’ve watched it about a million times (give or take). So I thought, hey, why not revisit it now, after just finishing a different novel, which was so long and detailed? A […]

Calvin might have a potato, but I have a broccoli.

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I read the first two of these books when I was a kid about 1000 times each. I think Sideways Stories from Wayside School was like 1000 times, and maybe Wayside School is falling down is more like 900 times, if I am being accurate. Indeed, I bought both of these from the Scholastic book fair, with the weird onion skin newsprint foldable pamphlet. It was great. I swear to goodness I read these so many times. So: Sideways Stories from Wayside School: 30 stories […]

Holes by Louis Sachar

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I haven’t read Holes since probably sixth grade, but when I saw it for a dollar at a big library book sale, I couldn’t pass it up (I got a really cool edition, too–the cover is full of holes). I was surprised and pleased to find that it held up quite well to my memory of it. In case you’re unfamiliar with the plot, Holes stars an unlucky young man named Stanley Yelnats (Yelnats = Stanley in reverse), who descends from a long line of unlucky Stanley […]



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