Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Great subject, great writing, but the story did nothing for me

A Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux

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I do not wish to explain my passion—that would imply that it was a mistake or some disorder I need to justify—I just want to describe it. ― Annie Ernaux, Simple Passion Yet it is that surreal, almost non-existent last visit that gives my passion its true meaning, which is precisely to be meaningless, and to have been for two years the most violent and unaccountable reality ever. ― Annie Ernaux, Simple Passion At best, I’m ambivalent about this story. The writing is gorgeous. And […]

“… I just want to describe it.”

Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux

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This book is a match, a brief flame, over before you are fully aware of the heat of the fire. A lingering scent in the air. This slim novel is only 61 pages – a thorough review threatens to be longer than the book itself. An older woman, likely divorced, invests fully in an affair with a married man. His entire self is foreign to her – literally, as in he comes from another country, but also in the sense that he consists of another […]

a thousand apologies and what feels like a thousand reviews (through November 2023)

Edinburgh by Alexander Chee

The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Kindred by Octavia E Butler

Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Hinumegin er mars by Sólrun Michelsen

Trust by Hernan Diaz

How Westminster Works . . . and Why It Doesn't by Ian Dunt

Happy Place by Emily Henry

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones

The Establishment: And How They Get Away with It by Owen Jones

In the Beginning was the Sea by Tomás González

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

The City & the City by China Miéville

A History of Burning by Janika Oza

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert

Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent by Dipo Faloyin

Passion Simple by Annie Ernaux

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Forget Me Not by Julie Soto

Hotel of Secrets by Diana Biller

The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain by Brett Christophers

The Late Mrs. Willoughby by Claudia Gray

Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon

A Tempest at Sea by Sherry Thomas

Politics On the Edge: A Memoir From Within by Rory Stewart

Rivals by Katherine McGee

Reign by Katherine McGee

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

The Iliad by Homer, Emily Wilson

Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America by Michael Harriot

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

10 Things that Never Happened by Alexis Hall

The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

The Fraud by Zadie Smith

A Dangerous Kind of Lady by Mia Vincy

A Little Life by Hanya Yanighara

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

The Starting Over Game by girl_with_kaleidoscope_eyes

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Edinburg by Alexander Chee CBR15: Sex True fact, when someone British asked me what I was reading I pronounced this “Edin-BERG” and to their credit they didn’t laugh but instead asked, with some horrified sincerity, if that’s how Americans say it. It’s not! At least, not on purpose. It’s just how can the English language claim to have been invented in a country that seems to not have grasped even a shred of understanding of how the various letters in it work? I digress. This is […]

Annie Ernaux (1)

Cleaned Out by Annie Ernaux

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It would be easy to assume or guess that this Annie Ernaux novel about a young woman needing to seek out, as she calls out, “a back alley abortion” is already covered in the auto-fiction book “A Happening”, and in some ways it is. This is Annie Ernaux’s debut novel from the early 1970s, and while both probably have some place in truth (certainly “A Happening” does), this book is so much more a novel. They also cover much different ground. The story in “A […]

Writings about Life – Annie Ernaux

A Woman's Story by Annie Ernaux

A Man's Place by Annie Ernaux

Possession by Annie Ernaux

A Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux

Happening by Annie Ernaux

Exteriors by Annie Ernaux

I Remain in Darkness by Annie Ernaux

Shame by Annie Ernaux

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A Man’s Place In short biography of her father, inspired by his death at 67 from a heart attack, Ernaux explains how her position (born in 1940, a woman) moving into a more open post-war France, becoming educated, and becoming a teacher creates a kind of class wedge that drives a furthering distance between her and her parents. Specifically in this book, she ties this wedge to her becoming a certified teacher almost immediately preceding the death of her father. If memoir is often a […]

The Years – Annie Ernaux (2008)

The Years by Annie Ernaux

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Wow. This is both is pretty amazing. It’s called The Years, and it’s presented as a kind of anti-narrative like an annals or other time keeping, but not storytelling history format. It’s an anti-memoir at times, and while there’s no “plot” pre se, there’s a implied plot throughout via a kind of impression or cut out, clearly articulated of where the plot would go and what shape it would take. This is a memoir told through many declarative statements about both a singular woman, but […]



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