Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A delightful YA Jewish short story collection

It's a Whole Spiel: Love, Latkes, and Other Jewish Stories by Katherine Locke and Laura Silverman

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What does it mean to be Jewish? I have never contemplated this question, because I am not Jewish. But I am trying to read about diverse faiths and cultural perspectives, particularly when they intersect with other identities. It’s a Whole Spiel caught my eye at my library (which is now open for limited in-person browsing, thank goodness!), and I was happy to devour it over this weekend. This anthology of short stories features all kinds of Jewish voices and perspectives, from people who are culturally […]

We all deserve better.

Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram

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I read Darius the Great Is Not Okay last year, prepared to LOVE it, and really just liked it. That’s not an indictment of the book–it was a good book! I was curious to see where Adib Khorram would take the story next, and as it turned out, he really dug deep into the characters. Darius Kellner has returned from his spring trip to Iran. He’s still best friends with Sohrab and has joined the soccer team at school. He’s made friends. He’s gotten a […]

Can you say Gentrification, Boys and Girls?

Pride by Ibi Zoboi

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It is a truth universally acknowledged that when rich people move into the hood, where it’s a little bit broken and a little bit forgotten, the first thing they want to do is clean it up. But it’s not just the junky stuff they’ll get rid of. People can be thrown away too, like last night’s trash left out on sidewalks or pushed to the edge of wherever all broken things go.  What those rich people don’t always know is that broken and forgotten neighborhoods […]

Everyone Needs Their Own Group of Corgis

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

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This novel is one of the books that I received from Bonnie for the Cannonball Read Book Exchange.  One thing to know is that I had the hard cover copy of the book checked out from my community college library (which has an amazing collection of new fiction with few folks on the waitlist) for an embarrassingly long time—since maybe July (just kept renewing it . . .). Just when I was starting to get threatening e-mails from circulation mentioned the replacement cost of the […]

Thank You, Thank You, and My Local College Library Thanks you

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  I am embarrassed to say that though I am just posting this now, these two lovely books from Bonnie arrived in the mail the Monday after Thanksgiving.  I did a quick happy dance and then dove back into the giant pile of essays, research portfolios, and other writing assignments needing to be graded/responded to (yes, I am a community college writing teacher.)  I am just now climbing my way out of that pile and posting this long overdue thank you. First of all, I […]

National Poetry Month- what doesn’t kill you still hurts

Our Lady of the Ruins by Traci Brimhall

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When it comes to reading poetry, I tend to stick with the classic epic poems like Beowulf and The Odyssey or more contemporary YA poetry-as-novel (The Poet X, Brown Girl Dreaming). I can’t remember a time outside of a classroom when I read a poetry collection. So for the CBR book exchange last December, one of my suggestions for whomever was buying for me was a book of poems, and Cannonballer Bonnie sent me this slim but stunning and provocative collection by contemporary award-winning poet […]



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