Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

If you knew how your actions affected others, would you change them?

An Inspector Calls and Other Plays by JB Priestley

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An Inspector Calls and Other Plays contains, as you might have guessed, An Inspector Calls as well as Time and the Conways, I Have Been Here Before, and the Linden Tree. Of the collection, An Inspector Calls stands head and shoulders above the rest but they are all of a high standard. Time and the Conways and I Have Been Here Before both deal with time, fate and free will, but of the two I definitely enjoyed the latter the most. The former sees us […]

Laugh so Loud at the Coffee Shop that the Guy Next in Line Spills His Drink (CBR11 Bingo: The Collection)

Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory by Raphael Bob-Waksberg

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The bizarre come home to roost in Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory. Fleeting daydreams turn into years long stunted relationships, science goes too far into US history, dogs navigate the meaning of “good” and “bad”, entire stories are told in the span of half-sentences, and a Minions watch holds new and aching power. The wordplay, absurdity, and bone-deep ennui of Bob-Waksberg’s previous creation, Bojack Horseman, are ever present and ready to build you up and tear you back down to the ground. […]

CBR11Bingo: Award Winner (and 2 others)

Vox by Christina Dalcher

Dry by Neal Shusterman, Jarrod Shusterman

The Dispatcher by John Scalzi, Zachary Quinto (Narrator)

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I’ve grouped 3 reviews here — all are “in the not so distant future, the world will be even shittier than it is now” stories. John Scalzi’s The Dispatcher won an Audie for Zachary Quinto’s narration, so that’s my “Award Winner!” Square. Vox by Christina Dalcher I don’t normally read books that have a less than 3.8 rating on Goodreads. That seems to be about my threshold for enjoying something. Vox has about a 3.6, but it was highly recommended on THIS site so I […]

Just because it’s true doesn’t make it a good story.

To Cut a Long Story Short by Jeffrey Archer

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This is a collection of 14 short stories with most of them based on true incidents, some observed by the author himself, some told to him by others. They range from a married woman being seduced by a con artist, to a South African having a change of heart regarding his racist views, to a man funding his talentless brother’s life as an artist. At first glance, the stories seemed to be rather diverse in their range of topics and characters, but the further I […]

You recognized her?

The Underdog and Other Stories by Agatha Christie

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This is a collection of Hercule Poirot stories from 1951 (in the US publication). These are mostly perfectly good stories and of course Poirot is charming as ever. What is mostly clear throughout all of these stories is that Poirot does not lend himself well to stories in general, when compared to the novels. I think this is mostly because he’s not always the center of the novels. His presence is secretive and understated a lot of the time, and then he moves in in […]

Ain’t no sunshine (The Collection)

Strange Weather by Joe Hill

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Try and contain your shock, but a book by Joe Hill is dark. I’m used to the horror author writing books that have a macabre bent, but this was less “skeleton and ghost dark” and more “I’m gonna curl up on the couch and remind myself that this is fiction dark.” The collection is four novellas connected loosely by abnormal weather – lightning storms in “Snapshot,” a firestorm in “Loaded,” an unusual cloud in “Aloft” and fulgurite rain in “Rain.” But the darkest part of […]



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