Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Shocking News, Classic Author Wilkie Collins Wrote Another Good Book

The Dead Secret by Wilkie Collins

by Leave a Comment

CBR15Bingo: Dwelling (the secret in the house is a major part of this book, and the house itself is a sort of character) I continue my tradition of one Wilkie Collins book a year with The Dead Secret, a fun and fast-paced read that cements Collins as probably my favorite Victorian writer (besides George Eliot for Middlemarch, but I’ve struggled to read Daniel Deronda about four times, whereas I’ve enjoyed every Collins I’ve read). I was especially impressed to note on the back cover that […]

“Even though the world is ending in the spring, that’s still two quarters of a school year away. And school years last forever.”

The World Ends in April by Stacy McAnulty

by Leave a Comment

I got this book somewhat randomly (from a box of books to be thrown out) but ended up really enjoying it. I do love a solid middle grade novel where everyone learns a lesson, and this had that in spades. The World Ends In April follows Eleanor, who’s having a hard time in middle school — her mother is dead, she hates everyone at school, and her one best friend Mack might be leaving to go to another school. She deliberately tries not to interact […]

Not a bad ending but a little uneven with the science and the story

Cells at Work! vol. 6 by Akane Shimizu

by Leave a Comment

There’s seems to have been some drama behind the scenes before Cells at Work! Vol. 6 came out; a few years ago (pre-pandemic I think) it was listed for pre-order then disappeared. Now, it’s out as the final volume of the original series that’s now got a few spin-offs and an animation. Overall, the basic premise of real biology science presented through manga/anime tropes is still here and fun, although maybe worn a touch thin in places. This volume feels a bit more episodic than […]

Get to know Echo before her series streams on Disney+

Daredevil: Parts of a Hole by David Mack, Joe Quesada, Jimmy Palmiotti

by Leave a Comment

This graphic novel comprises the series of stories by David Mack and Joe Quesada that introduce the character Echo — a young woman who is deaf and Native American, and who possesses extraordinary ability to physically mimic whatever she sees. This allows her to become an excellent musician, dancer, and, yes, a fighter. I first learned about this character from Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection which opens with a short piece about Echo by David Mack, who himself has Cherokee heritage. The pairing of Echo […]

The things we do in the shadows

Blindness by Jose Saramago

by Leave a Comment

Do you like bleak dystopian novels full of bad things happening to humanity in general and certain characters (usually women) in particular? Is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road your jam?  Then this book might be right up your alley. Set in the present day, we watch as characters named only by descriptors (the doctor, the doctor’s wife, the girl with the dark glasses, the boy with the squint, etc.) are struck down by epidemic of ‘white blindness’.  We start with patient zero, a man who suddenly […]

Words have their own hierarchy, their own protocol, their own artistic titles, their own plebeian stigmas.

by Leave a Comment

Death with Interruptions – 4/5 Stars As I have said, I started reading Saramago because of the comments of Ursula K Le Guin in her essay collection Words are My Matter. She wrote beautifully and swimmingly about his work and how much she respected him as a political person and a moral writer. She expressly talks about how he’s not a political writer, which is more or less true, in that he’s not a partisan writer (he’s politically socialist). Anyway, there’s a review blurb on […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo