Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Reversing the trip

Uprooted: A Memoir About What Happens When Your Family Moves Back by Ruth Chan

by Leave a Comment

Diversity The CBR17 Pie Chart Challenge The graphic novel Uprooted: A Memoir About What Happens When Your Family Moves Back by Ruth Chan is a fun story about when your whole life is not just turned around with a move and that move is all the way across the world!  Ruth, a young teen, and her parents move to Hong Kong (her mothers hometown) from Canada  when her father gets a great new job in China. If this wasn’t bad enough, her brother is staying […]

Doppelganger

Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

by 1 Comment

Are y’all watching Severance? Did you watch Dark Matter? Could I recommend Counterpart with J.K. Simmons and Olivia Williams? Have you seen Mr. Klein with Alain Delon? Surely you’ve seen Vertigo? How about Coherence? Look, what I am saying is that I love a doppelganger story. Published in 2023, Doppelganger is not exactly an under-the radar book. Naomi Klein, already a well-known author, has won several well-deserved awards for it. and I think it’s in a lot of people’s periphery, at least. In Doppelganger, Klein […]

How Japanese denim got so good.

Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style by W. David Marx

by Leave a Comment

I can’t remember how I came across the recommendation for this book, but I’m so glad I did. Although I knew, through a vague cultural osmosis, that Japanese denim is The Best, and that Harajuku is (was?) some sort of Center of Style, and also, as a sewist, that Japanese cottons are really amazing quality, I had no context for any of this. In my mind it was part of this sort of fuzzy cultural impression that Japan is, and always has been, good at […]

Review 2?

The Sunflowers: Vincent van Gogh's Search for Beauty by Zahra Marwan

by Leave a Comment

As many of you know, I am in the bookselling business. Currently I am behind the scenes, but I occasionally still “hand sell” a book (usually via an email or over the phone, not on the sales floor). And because I am in retail, it might seem odd I would go to the library as I practically have access to any book I want. But sometimes you just have to.  I want to see if I would like a book before I buy it, or […]

Look forward with the words of Watson

Black Girl You Are Atlas by Renée Watson and Ekua Holmes

by Leave a Comment

Black Girl You Are Atlas by Renée Watson was one of those books I had heard about, seen, but never really wanted to read. I mean, I like young adult literature, I like poetry and I like young adult poetry. However, I judged the book by the cover and theme. I assumed it would be some flowery “poor me” story. Instead, it is a truly strong and amazing short collection of poems that are relatable, informative and thoughtful. The language is lovely, but straight forward. […]

And the Band Played On

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts

by Leave a Comment

The numbers of AIDS cases measured the shame of the nation….The United States, the one nation with the knowledge, the resources, and the institutions to respond to the epidemic, had failed. And it had failed because of ignorance and fear, prejudice and rejection. The story of the AIDS epidemic was that simple….it was a story of bigotry and what it could do to a nation. I moved from New York to San Francisco in 1990, when I was 21 years old. I vividly remember sitting […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo