Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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New treasures from Octavia Butler

Unexpected Stories by Octavia Butler

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Some days, the gods just smile on you. I was walking into Dreamhaven Bookstore in Minneapolis (and if you are in the area, check it out, one of the best places for Neil Gaiman/anime/science fiction stuff in the upper Midwest) when I saw an entire shelf devoted to the works of Ms. Butler. I had read Lillith’s Brood many years before and loved it but loaned out my copy and it was never returned. So I purchased a number of works and started with Unexpected […]

Imagine learning to talk from recordings rather than people.

Because Internet by Gretchin McCulloch

To Marry Medusa by Theodore Sturgeon

Come Closer by Sara Gran

The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey by James Lecesne

Coming Out Party by Nikki Levy

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

An Act of God by David Javerbaum

Unexpected Stories by Octavia Butler

Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith

Henrietta and Eleanor by Libby Spurrier

Love that Dog by Sharon Creech

Hate that Cat by Sharon Creech

Break Shot by James Taylor

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Because Internet: 4/5 Stars A book whose title and public relations/previews made me really not want to read, this ended up being a) much different from what I thought it was going to be and b) a lot better as well. This is not an amateur at language in a way that may very well be accurate enough, but would also be facile or shallow. Instead, Gretchen McCulloch writes an interesting analysis of language for amateurs, but using the tools of her work as a […]

An excellent adaptation of a classic novel

Kindred by Octavia Butler

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Some stories hit you harder than others. Reading this graphic novel, shortly after watching the film Harriet, struck like a thunderbolt. Some people, mostly belonging to a certain political party, have attempted to make slavery seem not so bad. Which is why works like Kindred are so important. In Kindred, Dana, a young black woman, married to a white man in 1976, finds herself transported back the mid 1800s to save a white ancestor of hers. She bounces back and forth between the time periods […]

There is literally no place in American history that’ll be awesome for me.

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REVIEW OF BOTH KINDRED (Octavia E. Butler) & DREAD NATION (Justina Ireland) It was just by chance that I happened to read Dread Nation and Kindred at the same time, but it was hard not to draw parallels between the two books.  Issues of gender, power, and the complexities of race as well as strong female narrators bind the two across the vast distance of their publication dates. Both books have interesting layers, and comparing and contrasting them would make a great literary analysis essay, but […]

I’m pissed I didn’t like this more.

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I’ve been sitting on this review for quite a while, not 100% sure what I wanted to say about this book. I was only about half finished with it during our book club discussion, but reading all of the comments, I knew I just didn’t feel as strongly about this book as most of you did. And I was pissed. I really wanted to love this. I was so fired up to read it. But maybe there was just too much hype, that when I […]

A little too late for CBR book club

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I sing the praises of my local library but sometimes I don’t get things quite when I would like – hence, getting and finishing Kindred slightly after the CBR book club. I am sorry I didn’t get to join the discussion, but I am so happy I finally had the push to read this one. Lord knows how or why, but I had no idea of what this book was going to be about. The cover doesn’t really do the book justice – this looks like it’s […]



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