Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A psychedelic sex romp

The Agency by Katie Skelly

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The Agency by Katie Skelly is porn. Torture porn. Sex porn. Women in power porn. Women as submissives porn. Gender is explored, sex is really explored (casual to really casual). If there was an opportunity to show a long-legged-half dressed or fully undressed woman, they took it. S&M means Sex & Me all the time. All the women are supposed to be physically beautiful but no one has ever met a calorie they did not ignore. You can tell if the carpets and drapes match, […]

Her only short story

Recitatif by Toni Morrison

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Recitatif is Toni Morrison’s only short story. Published in 1983, the version I read was republished in 2022 and featured an introduction by Zadie Smith (the introduction was longer than the short story). I often regret reading introductions before I read the main story because I usually prefer to have my own thoughts and impressions when reading something new. On the other hand, I probably notice and take more in when I’ve been primed by an introduction. Anyway, Zadie Smith’s introduction was very smart and thoughtful. […]

A short essay I heard about on NPR and needed to know more

On Grief: Love, Loss, Memory by Jennifer Senior

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I heard Jennifer Senior talking to one of the NPR hosts one day about this short story. It drew me in, and I wanted to read the whole thing. This was a short essay, but the characters (who are real people) were very well described and I felt like I was interacting with them. The main story is about Bobby McIlvaine, who worked in one of the twin towers and died in the September 11th attacks. Bobby had written journals starting in his childhood, up […]

Coming to you from across the globe

Beneath the Moon: Fairy Tales, Myths, and Divine Stories from Around the World by Yoshi Yoshitani

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Beneath the Moon: Fairy Tales, Myths, and Divine Stories from Around the World has some of the most amazing illustrations (almost all of my rating of five is for them) by Yoshi Yoshitani. They accompany each section of the book (or chapter) that includes a page of text to go along with them. All are short (just the one folktale, legend, myth, etc) but some are a story with the culture it comes from. While others are more of a description of the person/people talked […]

Girls just want to have graphic hyperbole

Girl Juice by Benji Nate

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Benji Nate is one screwed up person and you will love or hate their work. Sometimes at the same time, like Girl Juice was for me.  This graphic novel is broken down into two main sections. The first follows four roommates that might not really like each other, but they do seem to love each other and have each other’s backs. Unless there is a cute boy, or work, or you know, they have something better to do. We mostly focus on Bunny (the self-proclaimed […]

Much Tragic. So Drama.

The Distracted Preacher and Other Tales by Thomas Hardy

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Must confess.  In my late teens, I went on a Thomas Hardy binge.  British lit wasn’t new to me, but something about Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Far From the Madding Crowd just hit my tragic drama queen teen heart.  Read everyone I could get my hands on, and in those days, there was a fair bit to be found, in school libraries and even public ones.  Inevitably the protagonist (and it was usually a heroine) came to a sad end, and I was there […]



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