Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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vel veeter's Reviews:

Changes in the Land – William Cronon (1983)

Changes in the Land by William Cronon

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CBR13Bingo – Landscape A second read through. This is one of those academic texts that can actually make you want to be an academic. It’s a wonderfully argued book, that’s probably got some reasonable detractors who I can’t or won’t include here, but that makes a clear argument, demonstrates the use of evidence to support that argument, and effectively guides you through how the evidence argues for what William Cronon says it does, and helps you to understand what the evidence even is. So basically, […]

Animal, animal!

Barn 8 by Deb Olin Unferth

Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq

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CBR13Bingo – Fauna Both of these fit the category, so I will link them together.   Barn 8 – 3/5 Stars We get a lot of exposition upfront with this book. Our protagonist runs away from her New York life when she’s 15 to meet her estranged, and only recently discovered father in Iowa. Turns out, he’s nothing special. She’s been living with her mom in New York, a woman who left Iowa at 19 while pregnant and had to make it on her own. […]

The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas – Machado de Assis (1881)

The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Machado de Assis

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CBR13Bingo – Pandemic We learn in the opening section and introduction to this book that Machado de Assis has Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy in mind with this book, and that influence is clear throughout. The structure of this novel is not entirely novelistic, but instead is presented as a diary published after the death of our protagonist, Bras Cubas, who is a minor, failing lord who owns plantations in Brazil. And sometimes a lot happens and sometimes very little happens, as is the nature of […]

Childhood Sci Fi Romp

House of Stairs by William Sleator

Interstellar Pig by William Sleator

Parasite Pig by William Sleator

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This was going to be a bigger romp, but once I got ahold of all these books I read as a kid, I just wasn’t as inspired as I thought I would be.   House of Stairs: 5/5 Stars As with most of the William Sleator books this is one that I read as a kid. I recall having to make a few attempts to get through it, and I understand now. The book is relatively oblique about its characters and plot. One at a […]

Ship Breaker – Paolo Bacigalupi (2010)

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

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CBR13Bingo – Machinery A book that took me a few false starts to get into. For one, this book is bleak. It’s version of the world involves young children and adolescents eschewing childhood into a life of pure survival. If you’re old enough you can work light crew, finding the wiring, odds and ends, and other manageable salvage from old ships on the Gulf coast. Once you’re old enough, you can move on to heavy crew. Nailer is still on light crew when he falls […]

The River – Peter Heller (2019)

The River by Peter Heller

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CBR13Bingo – The Wilds This is a consummate river novel. There’s been a few of those over the years like Deliverance, Heart of Darkness, and The African Queen. This one shares some of the sensibilities of especially Deliverance, with some atmospheric qualities of nature writers. Two friends from college have decided to spend their summer canoeing, hunting, fishing, and camping in the far Canadian northeast. Early one, they run across two “fat Texans” who are drunk or high, and hear the faint traces of a […]



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