Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

She sees dead people. They know they’re dead and they want justice.

Shutter: A Novel by Ramona Emerson

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The first chapter of Shutter is tough to read. Main character Rita Todacheene is a forensic photographer for the Albuquerque police department, and she is on assignment. A young woman named Erma Singleton has either jumped or been pushed to her death from an overpass over an interstate highway, and now Rita must photograph all the remains at the scene. Being a forensic photographer, seeing the aftermath of such violence on a daily basis and taking hundreds of detailed shots of it, would take an […]

Suspicion

Symposium: A Novel by Muriel Spark

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There is something about writers from Scotland, rather like those from Scandinavia, that just brings along the darkness. Reading Muriel Spark’s short 1990 novel Symposium reminded me of a read from last year, Elspeth Barker’s 1991 novel O, Caledonia. Both novels feature old moneyed families fallen on hard times in Scotland, and both cast a gimlet eye on the intellectual, propertied class. Also, both are excellent, quick reads. Symposium is a murder mystery that happens while a dinner party is occurring. Sparks takes us in […]

1984/Julia

1984 by George Orwell

Julia by Sandra Newman

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Over the years I have read 1984 maybe half a dozen times, always for class-related assignments when I was a student or when I was a teacher. It has probably been over 20 years since my last re-read, and I’m glad I picked it up again before reading Sandra Newman’s Julia, a take on 1984 from the point of view of Winston Smith’s lover. I have always found 1984 to be a challenging read; dystopian fiction is unsettling and the end of 1984 is tragic. […]

Epic fantasy inspired by the Pre-Columbian Americas

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

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CBR15 Bingo: On the Road – For two main characters about 80% of the book is them travelling. Bingo! The lands surrounding the Crescent Sea are ruled from the distant, northern city of Tova and the religious order of the Watchers.  The power of the Watchers has been waning and now that a commoner, Naranpa, has the highest role of Sun Priest there is dissent in the order and city.  Tova itself is broken into four districts each ruled by a different clan: Tsay (Golden […]

“Summer went away, still the yearning stays”

It's Not Summer Without You (2010) by Jenny Han

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“Before Jeremiah or anybody else could answer me, I made a run for the sliding doors, and then I stumbled down the steps and sprinted onto the beach. I felt like a flying comet, a streak in the sky, like I hadn’t used my muscles in so long and it felt great to stretch my legs and run. The house, all lit up with people inside, felt a million miles away. I knew he’d come after me. I didn’t have to turn around to know […]

Ah, the Art of Clumsily Remaking a Classic

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: High School is Hell (Vol. 1) by Jordie Bellaire

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once Bitten (Vol. 2) by Jordie Bellaire

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Hellmouth (Vol. 3) by Jordie Bellaire

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Ring of Fire (Vol. 4) by Jordie Bellaire

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        Okay, so let me explain what’s going on here real quick, because the comic doesn’t actually do a particularly good job of it: it’s adapting Buffy into the current modern day, rather than the modern day at the time that it aired.  So: pushing the story forward by about 20 years. And seeing what still works, what changes, and what snaps under the pressure.  It’s an interesting idea. It’s not so far of a time-displacement that it makes everything different (which […]



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