Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Couple of City Slickers in a John Wayne town

This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America by Navied Mahdavian

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Are you from CA and moved to The Middle of No Place? (Or from The City to The Country?) Did you try to live “off grid?” Did you mistake a coyote for a wolf? Do you think 2016 had the wrong person elected? If so, read this book, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America by Navied Mahdavian. However,  if you think the right person was elected in 2016, keep walking. If you are looking for an interesting, but slightly self-centered, memoir, this […]

Coming to America

Frankie D, Vegan Vampire by Sally Dutra and Brian Dutra

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Frankie D, Vegan Vampire by Sally Dutra and Brian Dutra, with illustrations by Tiffani Brown is set up as if The Addams Family were from today, a lot more modern (though their understanding of things still not the same as “normies”), plus were actual vampires. This is a fun and sweet book. The silly and clever retelling of a fitting in theme has been done before, but the humor this time around makes it fresh. The characters are maybe a bit of caricatures (there is […]

Read Everything And ‘Den Some! 

I Want to Read All the Books by Debbie Ridpath Ohi

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When I first saw the online reader copy of I Want to Read All the Books I skipped over it. Somewhat ironically, as I do want to read all the books, but I know I cannot, so I have to choose. But then I saw that it was by Debbie Ridpath Ohi. And that sealed the deal and I was thinking that I must read. Ohi is one of those authors/illustrators of books that you need to read. Maybe you do not love the work, […]

AB@C and more puzzles

AB@C: And Other Gramograms  by Rob Meyerson

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While I have difficulties with puzzles like the ones in AB@C: And Other Gramograms  (gramograms: word puzzles where letters, numbers, and everyday symbols create words and sentences) sometimes, I do enjoy them and find them clever. Therefore, when I saw that there was a new book coming out, I was interested.  Rob Meyerson’s works range for all ages, but some are more adult than others. Of course, they are not all necessarily “inappropriate,” but as always, know your reader.  I was reading via an online […]

“And isn’t it just so pretty to think / All along there was some invisible string / Tying you to me?”

Really Good, Actually (2023) by Monica Heisey

Romantic Comedy (2023) by Curtis Sittenfeld

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Really Good, Actually (2023) by Monica Heisey I came across Monica Heisey on Caroline O’Donoghue’s podcast Sentimental Garbage, in an episode on ‘Break-Ups’, and then found out that Heisey had been a writer on Schitt’s Creek, which I love enough that I wrote an academic chapter on it and still managed to love it afterwards. Really Good, Actually, does not at all have a Schitt’s Creek vibe, which is good! We love a versatile creative type! It’s about Maggie and her post-divorce malaise at the […]

Similar looks, different stories

Mali Under the Night Sky: A Lao Story of Home by Youme)

Some Kids by Fifi Abu

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Two picture books to add to your libraries this fall are below. Each is different, but equally unique and fun.  November 2024 will find us with a published book titled Mali Under the Night Sky: A Lao Story of Home. Youme Ly Nguyen (or Youme) is the author and illustrator of this read via an online reader copy picture book. The story of a young girl fleeing her homeland because of war is not a new one, but the way Youme has spun their tale, […]



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