Bless Cannonball Read, praise be for friends who you know share a similar taste in books, and let the world rejoice for Murderbot. Because November is a busy time here at Cannonball Read (I still have half the assignment emails for Book Exchange to send out) I’ll be using a slightly modified plot summary from Goodreads: In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are (required to be) accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own […]
Snubbed and Bingo #3!
cbr10bingo Snubbed Christophe Chaboute’s graphic novel adaptation of Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick was nominated for a 2018 Eisner Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium. It lost to Damien Duffy and John Jennings’ adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Kindred. I’ve never had a great desire to conquer Moby Dick. It was never assigned in any of my high school or university literature classes, and frankly, the story of a crazy old sea captain trying to exact revenge on a white whale sounded weird. And then there’s […]
#CBR10Bingo: Snubbed – This One Summer (Bingo nr 4)
#CBR10Bingo: Snubbed- it won the Eisner Award in 2015, but was also nominated for a whole host of other things that it lost out on. Every summer Rose and her parents go to Arwago Beach. They have their set rituals and it’s Rose’s favourite time of the year. Her friend Windy is also there, and she and Rose are inseparable all summer. Something is different this year, though. There’s a tension between Rose’s parents and they keep fighting when they think Rose can’t hear them. For […]
Racism is Racism, No Matter What Time Period
Last summer I helped my boss chaperone his student study-abroad trip to Australia, and the class read this book on the plane going over. I was far more enticed with Air New Zealand’s extensive on-flight entertainment package, and so I spent my plane ride in the iron-a** challenge watching all six (extended) Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films instead. Since returning, my boss has been passively placing The Secret River in obvious places on my desk, which I’ve learned is his silent way of […]
Not to be confused with the famously terrible Tommy Wiseau film
CBR10 Bingo: Snubbed (short-listed for the 2010 Man Booker Prize) – BINGO #2! Jack is a typical five-year-old boy. He likes cartoons and birthday cake and bouncing on the bed. He does phys ed with his mother, timing how many laps they both can make around the room and celebrating when he wins. He likes picture books and drives his mother to distraction when he makes her read Dylan the Digger over and over and over. He’s whip smart for a 5-year-old; he knows that the […]
The 2nd Book in a Row for Me That Just Feels Overwhelmingly Lonely
This is a tough one… the characterization of the protagonist in this novel is absolutely fascinating, yet I don’t know that the book as a whole worked for me. Such a specific tone was slowly developed throughout the first 2/3 of the story, easing along gentle to the inevitable conclusion, which then came about so quickly that I felt like there had to be more. Eileen is named after it’s protagonist, Eileen, as she recounts the story of how she disappeared from her small hometown […]