Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Archives for December 2021

How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This

A Fortune for Your Disaster by Hanif Abdurraqib

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I love poetry, and am hopeless at both understanding and explaining it. TS Eliot said “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.” I love the words and rhythms and feeling, but I don’t always understand a poem in its entirety. So I apologize in advance for not being able to say anything sophisticated about Hanif Abdurraqib’s astonishing book of poetry, A Fortune for Your Disaster. Abdurraquib is a Black poet who writes with great fierceness and beauty about the Black experience, freedom, confinement, death, […]

Thank you Crystalclear!

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From Bibliophile (Jr. Cannonballer who does not yet have her own account but will next year):  Thank you! When I opened the package and saw all the wonderful books my first reaction was “this is very exciting!” I have been wanting these books for a while and can’t wait to read them! I also really like the bookmarks – especially the ginko leaves. I have always liked the shape of these leaves and there is a ginko tree right outside of where I eat lunch. From […]

Donation Good News

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We heard from Bothari43 this week that her employer was offering giving dollars based on her volunteer hours with us. Because we’re a pending 501(c)(3), her volunteer work did qualify for an internal giving reward. But because we’re only pending, her donation had to go directly to the American Cancer Society. Thanks to our incredibly successful #GivingTuesday, we were able to match Bothari43’s donation with another $300 donation to the American Cancer Society this morning. With this donation, we remember AlabamaPink, and we also remember […]

Imaginary Homelands – Salman Rushdie (1991)

IMaginary Homelands by Salman Rushdie

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Of the handful of nonfiction works I’ve read by Rushdie, this one feels like the most important and essential one. There’s some significant strengths in this one, so very necessary commentary, and nuanced understandings that either exist less in his later writing, or possibly exist less in his later thinking. If we’re thinking less of Rushdie as a public individual with a variety of views and a changing orientation toward the world and more of a writer who is presenting his views on these particular […]

Dragons of the Hourglass Mage – Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (2009)

Dragons of the Hourglass Mage by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

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The final of the “Lost Chronicles” book and like the previous one that mostly focuses on Kitiara, this story picks up Raistlin’s lost adventures during the last book. In the final book of the Chronicles, Raistlin removes himself from drowingin the maelstrom, seemingly dooming his brother and companions to their death. It’s clear from both this book and that book that this was the most he could do, save himself, and well, I’d also argue that if they wanted to be saved, they maybe should […]

Sisters might point things out that others are too polite to mention, but I wanna point out some good books

What Are Sisters For? by Anya Glazer

How to Hug a Pufferfish by Ellie Peterson

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There is no theme to connect What Are Sisters For? And How to Hug a Pufferfish, other than both are fun new books to get for your collection. Anya Glazer illustrated and wrote What Are Sisters For? I personally would say: to blame for things that you did; trade for chocolate cookies; and cut the fuzz out of your favorite koala bears ears (not really a plus, though). And speaking of koalas, we have two koala sisters, Ada and Bea. Ada the older, always has […]



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