Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A truly smackable protagonist

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

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Bingo square: Relation’ship’ June Hayward is out celebrating her pseudo-friend’s latest literary success (the Netflix deal!) when the unthinkable happens. Athena Liu, rising star of literature, dies in a freak accident in front of June. And June – jealous of her friend’s success and pitying herself for her own publishing woes – steals Athena’s latest manuscript and passes it off as her own. After a little name change and some racially ambiguous author photos, Juniper Song is born. And becomes the latest sensation. But with […]

Handing trauma down the line

Denizen by James Mackenzie Watson

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Bingo: Violence; Passport: Bush noir Denizen is one of the most disturbing books I have ever read.  I bought it thinking I was getting another “bush noir” – an Australian crime subgenre focussed on rural murders. What I actually got was a lot more interesting, but also much more confronting.  I think my Kindle skipped over the warning at the front that “this book depicts mental ill health and self harm” as its dark turn took me by surprise.  The narrative has a familiar crime […]

“So thank God, quite literally, for music”

Faith, Hope and Carnage by Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan

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Bingo: On Air Passport: Interview Faith, Hope and Carnage documents a series of conversations between musician Nick Cave and journalist Seán O’Hagan. The long and intimate relationship between the collaborators and Cave’s ease with self-examination have enabled this book to dig much deeper than the standard rock star memoir. This project was born out of the pandemic. In March 2020 Cave’s world tour was cancelled, and all the work put into preparing his Ghosteen album for live performance had come to nothing, bringing an extraordinary […]

Great Book—But Still Not Pleased With The Outcome.

The Genome Defense: Inside the Epic Legal Battle to Determine Who Owns Your DNA by Jorge L. Contreras

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I love a good turn of narrative non-fiction. Back in the early years of my PhD—which was in genetics—the topic of gene ownership and gene patents was a huge deal. If you were working in the field, there was no way you could have avoided getting dragged into the discussion; whether you were hearing about it from a medical perspective, an agricultural perspective or a ‘shit, I was broke doing my degree all those years ago so you’ll never guess what I did*’ perspective, you […]

CBR15 Bingo-Week 6 Check-in

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Welcome to Week 6! I bought an air fryer this week because it’s too damn hot to turn on the oven (also, when I tried to turn on my oven it didn’t turn on, so an air fryer until we figure out what’s happening with the oven). So far I’ve baked bread, roasted potatoes and brocoli, and way too much fried chicken. What should I make next? You can view the kick-off post with the categories, rules and card here. The Players: ardaigle – 7 […]

Shoulder pads and shootouts

G is for Gumshoe (1990) by Sue Grafton

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CBR Bingo Square: Relation”ship” (Fiercely independent PI Kinsey Millhone has to allow fiercely protective PI Robert Dietz be her bodyguard) I read a bunch of the ‘Alphabet Mystery’ series in my teens, when there was somehow time to read everything, and I would stock up on library books rather than booze for staying up all night on New Year’s Eve. They star, and are usually narrated by, Private Investigator Kinsey Millhone, a young-ish woman in California. She and Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski (1982-2022) were probably […]



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