Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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CoffeeShopReader's Reviews:

Come for the Recipes, but maybe not the Puns

Husbands That Cook by Ryan Alvarez, Adam Merrin

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Husbands That Cook caught my attention first with the title, and then with the notice that it was a vegetarian cookbook. The husbands of the title are Ryan and Matt (apparently they have a blog but that’s outside my pop culture knowledge) who pre-pandemic seem to have been big into trying out all the various local (LA-ish) restaurants; a lot of the recipes are international, but not always the same old, which is nice. Yes, there’s the expected shakshuka, bibimbap, samosas, ramen, and a tagine, […]

If the formula works, might as well use it

Jujutsu Kaisen, vols. 0-12 by Gege Akutami

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I’ve been seeing comments about the anime for Jujustsu Kaisen is the best thing ever this year, so when I saw almost the first 12 books in the manga series at the library, I decided to try it out. As it turns out the whole thing is relatively formulaic (enough that missing volumes 3, 4, and 11 didn’t seem to matter a whole lot) but still has enough personality to be interesting. The basic gist is that Yuji Itadori who has just lost his grandfather […]

Thou Shalt Check Thy Grammar Before Offering Running Advice

The Marathon Method by Tom Holland

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Overall The Marathon Method seems to be a pretty decent guide for long-distance running. It’s got specifics, both practical and theoretical. It explains not just the ‘how’ but also in most cases, the ‘why’. For example, why do a lot of runners use those gels packets no one seems to like? Because the body’s carb stores are likely to run out around mile 20 of a marathon’s 26.something, and those gel packets are a potable way to not run into the near total body shut […]

The King of the Nerds Falls Flat

Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons and Dragons by Michael Witwer

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Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons and Dragons tries to be a history of gaming, both general and specific, a biography, and a business of pop culture (cons, trends, geekdoms, etc) review all at once; it does not succeed. On the biography side, the subject Gry Gygax is presented with little personality other than ‘tempermental’ and ‘creative genius’ and ‘somewhat difficult’. There’s also little narrative to build and follow, mostly scattered episodes. Part of the problem is that no one else […]

Angsty teens figuring themselves out and it’s actually interesting

Dark Rise by C. S. Pascat

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I know C.S. Pascat from the Fence comics, a lighter queer romance set in a boys school fencing team. This is no that, mostly. Dark Rise is a chosen one story in which there is a secret organization fighting a secret battle to stop the great evil of the past from coming back. This is a standard fantasy scenario; what keeps things interesting is that no one with one or two exceptions is exactly who they think or say at the beginning. Will needs to […]

What if computers were actually kind of magic and programmers only half understood binary?

Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett

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In Foundryside, what starts out as a heist caper gone horribly wrong becomes a heist caper tale to save the world in which a band on unlikely companions must put aside  differences to stop someone from achieving immortality in a destructive way. Sancia is the thief and the main perspective for much of the story, but she’s pretty one note; she’s had to survive a lot and her past is traumatic, although when she finally faces some of it, the memories do sort of help […]



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