Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I’m honestly curious… (CBR12Bingo 2 – Adaptation)

The Wide Window by Lemony Snicket

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I’ve gone on at length about how I find much of the stylistic elements of the Series of Unfortunate Events books irritating – the interruption of the text to define words in particular – so it seems like the ideal book to adapt. The gothic stylings of the story, sets, and trappings of the Baudelaire orphan stories all are right up my alley, but I don’t like kids being talked down to – children’s books don’t have to explain everything to them once they’re past […]

The more books I read about high school, I feel like mine was weirdly not weird

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, read by Noah Galvin

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This is not what I thought it was going to be.  I mean, I didn’t look into it too much when I picked up the audiobook, but one of my coworkers said it was her favorite book, so I decided to give it a shot.  I think I thought it was going to be a high school story from the perspective of a quiet kid on the sidelines.  I mean, it kind of is, but it’s a lot more than that.   The book is […]

People swallow lies easily provided they are big enough

Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

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CBR12 BINGO: Yellow I’ve been in the mood to revisit Watchmen since I saw the extraordinary HBO series earlier this year (best television in recent memory, btw). Then references to the comic book series popped up in Eleanor & Park, and it gave me an extra push to reread the graphic novel that I first encountered when I was in college. Plus. . . .can’t get more yellow than that cover, can you? I wanted to see whether this classic holds up after 34 years, […]

“And if you say that’s because you lot barged into her home like a herd of mentally deficient sheep, I’m disowning all three of you.” (CBR12 Bingo)

The Duke and I (Bridgertons #1) by Julia Quinn

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Continuing down the road of comfort reading I’ve decided to do some rereading of Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series. I first read the books in 2015 and loved them then, and I’m happy to report that after my latest reading of The Duke and I, the first book in the series,  that I’m just as pleased now as I was then. Even better, there’s a Netflix adaptation of the series on the way – season one finished filming before COVID shutdown most television production but we […]

The film is WAY better than the book

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

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#CBR12 Bingo: Adaptation (was turned into a movie in 2015 – the film is way better than the book) (Can also be read for Debut) Official book description: Greg Gaines is the last master of high school espionage, able to disappear at will into any social environment. He has only one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time making movies, their own incomprehensible versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics.   Until Greg’s mother forces him to rekindle his childhood friendship with Rachel.   Rachel has been […]

“Somebody always leaves a banana-skin on the scene of a tragedy.”

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

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In Cuba, shortly before the end of the Batista regime, James Wormold, a vacuum cleaner salesman, is recruited for the Secret Intelligence Service by an ambitious agent. He begins to fabricate information in order to earn money for his daughter’s education, but soon finds himself in more dangerous waters than he expected. This is a pretty good black comedy that makes fun of intelligence services and is genuinely hilarious, with the standout scene for me the one in which the agent who recruited Wormold notices […]



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