Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Dusty Highway

CBR10 participant
CBR11 participant

To paraphrase Wynonna, books are my strongest weakness. I've been away for a few years. It's time to get back to it. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Dusty Highway's Quick Questions interview - as dAvid.)

Dusty Highway's Reviews:

This book wasn’t written for me, and I feel fine

Dreadnought by April Daniels

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Roger Ebert used to talk about how important emotional response was to him as a critic, often more important than the technical and artistic merits. Even the most technically and artistically exquisite film could be a hollow and unsatisfying experience if he didn’t connect emotionally, and the opposite could also be true: sometimes, without any other explanation, a seeming piece of trash could be surprisingly fun simply because it connected to something ineffable inside him. So when the whole “Brie Larson commits white genocide against […]

The black bat night approached and enfolded her in its wings

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For the past 15+ years, I’ve been the target audience for the Man Booker awards: literary fiction snob leaning to British Commonwealth authors. Though I have been branching out into other genres over the last few years, I still look to the Booker long- and shortlists for recommendations and usually pick up at least a few each year. For some reason, I haven’t looked much into other prizes until this year when I realized the Baileys (formerly Orange) prize lists would be a great resource […]

I don’t want to review this book, Part 2: The Remix

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My appetite for Nisi Shawl’s Everfair has gone up and down since I first heard of it. It came highly recommended by multiple sources and ticked off so many intriguing boxes: a speculative, steampunk alternative history of an African nation by a woman of color. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. After I bought it earlier this spring, I noticed the Goodreads collective rating was on the low-ish side, and I’m not always as immune to popular opinion as I like to think I am. It […]

Same old Sedaris, now with added feels

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For several years now, I’ve refused to buy hardcover books. I don’t like the added expense, of course, but mostly, I just don’t like the extra bulk and really don’t like how they feel in my hand: too much like textbooks or hymnals. I don’t need to be reminded of either when I’m trying to read something fun. As a result, I’m consistently a year or two behind everyone else with my reading, a (discount) price I’m willing to pay.   David Sedaris has long […]

I don’t want to review this book

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Pachinko, Min Jin Lee’s novel following multiple generations of a Korean family through most of the 20th Century, has received a lot of positive attention: finalist for the National Book Award, 10 best books of 2017 for the New York Times Book Review, Roxane Gay’s favorite book of the year (according to the Washington Post). And from what I’ve seen, the reviews here at CBR have been universally positive. So I’m at a bit of a loss, because I really didn’t enjoy it. At all. […]

Everybody makes one another’s terrible mistakes

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I read this book too fast. I didn’t intend to. I picked it out as my travel book for a week of work and visiting friends in Boston, thinking I’d chip away a little each day. Then I read most of it on the flight out and finished it the next day because I just. couldn’t. help myself.  In writing these reviews for #CBR10, I’m beginning to wonder if the amount of detail I retain is inversely proportional to the amount of time it takes […]



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