Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Halbs

CBR 7
CBR 8
CBR 9
CBR10 participant
CBR11 participant
CBR12 participant
CBR13 participant
CBR14 Participant
CBR15 Participant
CBR16 Participant
CBR17 Participant
CBR17 Levels

I'm left-handed! (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Halbs's Quick Questions interview.)

Halbs's Reviews:

“I think Jesus would like better bands, you know?”

Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith by Russ Ramsey

by Leave a Comment

I recently came across an old CNN interview with Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins. In the interview, Corgan talks about how God is an unexplored area of rock because most people believe in some form of God, but most bands never mention God. CNN asks, “What would you say to Christian rockers, then?” Corgan thinks for a second and says, “Make better music…I think Jesus would like better bands, you know? Stop copying U2.” Corgan, in his very Corganesque observation, is correct. He is […]

“It is always awkward to be face-to-face with people who have what you want.”

Wrong Way by Joanne McNeil

by Leave a Comment

Even though Joanne McNeil is a “technology” writer, she always writes first and foremost about people. In her non-fiction book Lurking, she used her own experience growing up online to explore how over time people became “users.” (Blech! I miss you, 1990s internet!) She starts close and human and then zooms out to larger cultural issues. I think that’s where the power of her insight comes from – the humanity of it. McNeil’s debut novel Wrong Way is fiction, but the author employs the same […]

You can’t spell “heart” without “art,” man!

The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose

by Leave a Comment

The Museum of Modern Love centers around Marina Abramović’s real-life performance art piece “The Artist is Present” (2009). In 2009, Abramović spent more than 700 hours sitting across a table from strangers, one at a time, at the Museum of Modern Art. She sat for three months and truly looked at each person across from her. And vice versa. For many it was a profound experience. Yet it was a public thing – museum guests could file in and watch these intimate moments. To me, […]

Death and Life and Wheelies

Jupiter's Travels by Ted Simon

by Leave a Comment

During the 2020 COVID quarantine period, my wife and I tried to mentally escape our confinement by watching travel shows. Our favorites were (1) Travel Man, hosted by Richard Ayoade and (2) Long Way motorcycle journey series, hosted by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman (yes, Ewan McGregor). Travel Man focuses on many of travel’s fun social/cultural aspects. In contrast, the Long Way motorcycle series focuses more on the wandering/open/adventure aspects. In one of the Long Way episodes, hosts Ewan and Charley are very excited to […]

“For what, for whom, must I kill and be killed?”

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

by 6 Comments

The basics: Tolstoy’s War and Peace is the story of a few prominent Russian families around the period of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. Roughly, the first part is fancy dinners and balls as the Russian elite try to make sense of Alexander’s liberal policies and the role of Napoleon in Europe. The second part is about Napoleon’s military exploits in 1812-1813. The last part (roughly 20%) is the aftermath. Even though my version is 884 pages of small print, ultimately I found it fresh and […]

Living Through Reading

ABC of Reading by Ezra Pound

by Leave a Comment

Larry McMurtry recommended Pound’s ABC of Reading to me via Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen. It’s one of those books about books – a book about reading. Reading here is a verb’s verb. It’s all action, baby! It’s listening, it’s feeling the words in your mouth. It’s about l-i-v-i-n on Planet Earth. And if it’s not fresh, try again, amigo. Stand up to your full height and sound that barbaric yawp (or don’t – Pound isn’t a Whitman guy: “There are thirty well-written pages […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo