Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“We put so much effort into it, and I tanked it by being a horny goblin.”

Make You Mine This Christmas by Lizzie Huxley-Jones

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#CBR15 Passport Challenge: Recommended by a friend (I’m not sure if I would have ever discovered this book if it wasn’t for the amazing Narfna/Ashley A lot of contemporary romances get described as rom-coms, and in a lot of cases this is just lies, spouted by the publishers to get more people to pick up the books. Make You Mine This Christmas, on the other hand, is both romantic and very funny. I could easily see it as a film in my head. Haf (it’s […]

CBR15 Bingo: Europe (triple Bingo)

Folk med ångest (Anxious People) by Fredrik Backman

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#CBR15 Passport Challenge: Books from different countries (set in and written by a Swedish author, read in Swedish) CBR15 Bingo: Europe (see description for Passport Challenge) Official book description (translated by me): Folk med ångest (literally translated as People with anxiety, official English title Anxious People) is an unusually messy comedy about a hostage drama during an apartment showing, where a failed bank robber locks themselves in with an overly enthusiastic realtor, two bitter IKEA-addicts, a mean multimillionaire, a sad lady, a very pregnant woman, […]

“Children, set the table. Your mother needs a moment to herself.”

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

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#CBR15 Passport Challenge: Books recommended by friends Elizabeth Zott is a chemist struggling to be taken seriously by her male colleagues at a lab in the 1960s. She never completed her degree because her academic advisor raped her, but her lack of degree in no way means she’s not intelligent. Despite her brilliant mind, her male co-workers either treat her as nothing more than a lab assistant or steal her research and present it as their own. The one exception to this is Calvin Evans, […]

such a delightfully odd book, definitely on my list of books to recommend in turn

Red Plenty by Francis Spufford

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Cannonball Passport: a recommendation from Chris, spasibo How to explain this book, which was exactly what was promised on the back cover and yet hard to fully explain? It is historical fiction, with some characters plucked from the annals of the USSR and others constructed—not from whole cloth, but from several scraps who did exist (or who probably did). It’s a different take on the Soviet Union, painted not with satire but not with nostalgia/wistfulness either? I wonder how much would resonate with someone from […]

Definitely Not a Comic Book

Almost American Girl by Robin Ha

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When I read that my local High School had removed the graphic memoir Almost American Girl by Robin Ha from their summer reading list, I had to read it. The school board members called it a comic book. Well, I am sure glad this book hit my radar because it is excellent. I strongly feel that most high school kids would benefit from reading it. Let me start by saying I do not like reading graphic novels. My brain is not wired to enjoy reading […]

A Deep and Dark Conspiracy

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

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Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI was utterly infuriating. I read it in anticipation of the movie that’s set to be released in a few months, and I knew it wasn’t going to be a terribly happy story. But I felt myself getting worked up about it none the less.  The Osage once possessed a territory that covered much of modern-day Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma. But encroaching expansion from the US government lead to the Osage being mostly displaced […]



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