Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Claire Badger

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Claire enjoys Canadian Fiction, sci-fi and books about grammar.

Claire Badger's Reviews:

Heartwood

Greenwood by Michael Christie

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I have not been able to sit still and read for a long time. With the pandemic, my mind can rarely engage with a book for any sort of marathon session. Michael Christie has figured out the antidote, at least for me, with his tightly packed, well-plotted and bracing book about four generations of the Greenwood family. His narrative inspired me to reflect on my own long family history in this country, to consider the things I do and don’t know for certain about my […]

Too much and not enough

Songs for the End of the World by Saleema Nawaz

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I wanted to like this book, but so much of it was a slog. It’s about a pandemic, coincidentally taking place over the fall and early winter of 2021, and yet unfolding at a slightly different rate than the one that hit us all in 2019. Nawaz can’t be blamed for getting some of the mundane aspects of quarantine wrong, although much of her understanding of how cities, states and countries respond with various measures that may or may not be effective bares a certain […]

How we remember the future

Tales From The Loop by Simon Stalenhag

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I got into this book in the most backward way possible. I was looking for more Phillip Glass music, when I found his score for the show; so then I watched the show; then I bought the book. But it speaks to the quality of it that, as I flipped through the pages and looked at the vignettes and the memory-style stories, I put Glass’s music on and it matched perfectly. You may remember a few years back when a series of paintings of retro-style […]

I can’t even with this book

The Great Symmetry by James R. Wells

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You guys. I tried so hard with this book. I wanted to just read a silly, fun little sci-fi adventure but I could not get through this. I submit, at my best attempts to finish, this book to the DNR pile. It starts off strong, with a fun little space ship chase and the premise of a corporate controlled space future. It seemed simple enough and like it would just be, y’know, fun. Like not profound, not stupid, but fun. Except we end up in […]

Farming for Babies

The Farm by Joanne Ramos

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Everyday, on my walk to work, I pass by a park full of Filipino caretakers watching over and playing with little white children. The neighbourhood I walk through is pretty gentrified, and it’s clear these women are nannies and not the mothers of these little ones. This time of day is as much the socialization time for each caretaker as it is for the children, and I can hear them speaking in their native tongue and sitting to the side having close talks with their […]

Too Many Extremes

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

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In August, LittlePlat wrote about this book and I thought “huh, that sounds up my alley,” and I quickly bought it and started to read it. It took a while to get into, but by the second half of the book I couldn’t put it down, and spent a rainy day at the cottage finishing it up. I love the world building. Tidal locked planets seem to be a hot topic in sci-fi these days, and I’ve enjoyed reading some of the ideas about how […]



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