Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“I googled ‘monkey brothel’, had an existential crisis, and eventually found the details I wanted in a New Yorker article titled ‘Monkey Business’.”

Sex Power Money by Sara Pascoe

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Frequently, I find myself disagreeing with Sara Pascoe- but it’s not a problem! She’s funny, curious, and well-researched, and she makes no claims about being objective. She leans right into the fact that she her opinions are colored by her past experiences, and she remains open to other ideas and beliefs even if they do not mesh with hers. She is open and honest about her past experiences- especially those that pertain to sex, power, and money. Some are truly harrowing, yet she is a […]

“Heroes hate wasting time. ‘You’re wasting my time,’ they’ll say. Yet they devote very little time to time management, and rarely consult a diary.”

The Grip of Film by Richard Ayoade

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Another Ayoade book! So exciting! Except….wait. This is barely Ayoade. Yes, he wrote it, and yes, he does some narration- “some” being the key word in this situation. The Grip of Film is a fake book written by a fake person (written by Ayoade, naturally). The fake person is Gordy LaSure; a longtime Hollywood vagrant and alleged screenwriter. Gordy is a (purposefully) contemptible character; he has the bravado of The Kids Stays in the Picture with a fraction of the success and (at least) four times the casual […]

Sudo read this comic if you don’t already

XKCD Volume 0 by Randall Munroe

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Since starting to work from home full time in March, I have gotten a little out of the habit of checking the XKCD web-comic regularly. I’ve forgotten how I first found it; I suspect my brother forwarded me one he thought I’d like and the rest, as they say,… Anyways, I realized that I had XKCD: Volume 0 on my shelf, and I don’t think I’ve ever read it through until very recently. The tagline on the webcomic is “A web-comic of romance, sarcasm, math, […]

And a shout out to Mom for moving the dead squirrel

Something New: Tales from a Makeshift Bride by Lucy Knisley

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I was never “that girl.” You know, the one that planned her wedding before she could walk. In fact, I never really wanted to get married. Most people think that is because my parents were divorced; but it is just the opposite. My parents were happily married for over 30 years when my mom passed almost 7 years ago.  Therefore, Lucy Knisley and I had something in common there. But when Lucy did decide to marry, in the middle of planning it all, she also […]

Dead men tell no tales….. unless it is in the form of a trilogy

Exquisite Corpse by Penelope Bagieu

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With a title like Exquisite Corpse, I was not sure what to expect. What journey was Penelope Bagieu (with translation by Alexis Siegel) going to take me on? Was I going to be Brazen or would I be California Dreaming again? Neither. I was in the middle of Pairs, locked in an apartment with one crazy-a$$ author, a girl who is as naïve as she is a selfish-20-something and one editor who put the fatale in femme fatale. Zoe is less than sophisticated. She hates […]

People needing People who are People, too

The World Needs More Purple Pepole by Kristen Bell

You Matter by Christian Robinson

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Current events have made people want books on race, being open and being different. Two books that are going to be big sellers from these categories are Kristen Bell’s The World Needs More Purple People and You Matter by Christian Robinson. Bell’s book is a “celebrity book” (in other words a bit indulgent). Yet there is a nice message to it. And, while it is a bit obvious what the point is and where it is going, it is not overly preachy. It just “is […]



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