Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Sure didn’t love it

Machines of Loving Grace by John Markoff

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I’m kind of convinced that this book was meta-non-fiction. It follows the history of artificial intelligence and the various ways that machines interact with humans, ostensibly with an eye to the future of the relationship humanity will have with robots once they tiptoe closer to sentience. That sounds like a good book. This is not that book. This book, I’m pretty sure, may have been the first full length book put to press written by an automaton. It would explain a lot – why the […]

I wish this book had never come to me (or: I’ll take “Lazy, Unfunny Review Titles for Lazy, Unfunny Books” for $200, Alex)

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CBR10Bingo: Alabama Pink (BINGO!) I chose Chelsea Handler’s My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands for my Alabama Pink square, thinking I could breeze through it, laughing a bit along the way and then completely forgetting it as soon as I finished, but man, this book was so bad that I couldn’t get past the fifth chapter. I’d already powered my way through some terrible books this year, and the world is just too crappy a place right now, so I gave myself permission […]

A horrible, convoluted mess that couldn’t be more horribly timed.

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Towards the end of my review of Rising Sun, I said, “Michael Crichton was kind of an asshole, right? I’m not off-base in saying that?”. With his follow-up novel, Disclosure, I can, without reservation, firmly assert that I think Michael Crichton was unquestionably an asshole. Disclosure, which Crichton alleges is based on a true story, tells the story of Tom Sanders, a department head for Digicom, a tech company on the cusp of a big merger. Sanders’ hopes for a big promotion are foiled by […]

Are we allowed to curse in review titles?

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I’m not sure about title-cursing rules, otherwise the title would be “Fuck This Book.” I don’t even know where to start, this stupid childish book brought out such a visceral rage in me. Reviews on Amazon and Goodreads suggest that some people didn’t abhor it. Some people loved it. This makes me think about statistics and probability – does the number of five star ratings mean that there are people in my life who do or would like this dumpster fire of a “book”? (The quotation […]

Atmospheric, but no mystery

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I know I’m late to the party on this book, and that it was a Very Big Deal some time ago, but kind of like the Martian it took me a while to catch up. Frankly? Unlike the Martian, with this book I don’t think I actually missed much.



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