Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Our Little Rainbow Warriors

The Rainbow Troops by Andrea Hirata

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The Rainbow Troops (Laskar Pelangi) was first published about 20 years ago in Indonesia, where it soon became an absolute bestseller. The book, very loosely based on Andrea Hirata’s own childhood, is set on Belitong Island, where the people are poor, but the surrounds are rich in tin. Most children in the region struggle to obtain an education, but the young Malay boy Ikal and his friends do have one option open to them; a small Muhammadiya (Islamic) school run by an early teacher, Pak […]

California Dreamin’

Now and On Earth by Jim Thompson

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If they accumulate a catalog of work large enough, every author/artist will have what are considered to be “lesser works.” And while occasionally, there’s a hidden gem buried in there or something that appeals specifically to the client, they’re called “lesser works” for a reason. I know a lot about Jim Thompson’s life and works but I didn’t know that Now And On Earth is 1. a semi-autobiography and 2. his very first book. It shows. We have an author with talent who doesn’t quite know what […]

I would go out tonight but I haven’t got a stitch to wear

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So I peer beyond the parapet of middlebrow interwar women’s writing and detective fiction to tackle something that’s very new but set in the very early nineties, a story about a girl who’s too big, too bright, and–at times–too brave. Moran’s pragmatic, if sometimes problematic, brand of feminism informs How to Build a Girl, which works to some extent as a companion piece to the early Adrian Mole books–it’s peculiarly British, and it’s about teenage lust, angst, dysfunctional families and communities, and poverty. It is […]



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