Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“You never leave jail, and jail never leaves you.”

I Don't Wish Nobody to Have a Life Like Mine: Tales of Kids in Adult Lockup by David Chura

by Leave a Comment

I honestly don’t remember where I got this, but I think it was at a used bookstore this summer. I Don’t Wish Nobody to Have a Life Like Mine is a collection of stories of David Chura’s time teaching teenagers who were seen as adult criminals legally and were being put into the adult system. He covers a variety of scenarios and tells some very heartbreaking stories that he saw during his tenure as a teacher. His main thesis is that the system is destructive […]

The Future Is Bleak

Sensation Machines by Adam Wilson

by Leave a Comment

Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: Tech. In addition to some of the tech developments set in this near-future pre-apocalyptic tale, one of the main subplots is an interactive video game the characters play that features heavily in the narrative. This book started out interesting enough: we come upon a disaffected broke upper class Brooklyn couple, trying to recover from infertility and the loss of an infant. The husband has lost their money at a time of a bad economic downturn but is trying to […]

No, Not You. We Named the Monkey Jack!

Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen

by Leave a Comment

Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: first. This is the first of two Carl Hiaasen novels to feature criminal food inspector Andrew Yancy.  I wanted to read this before I saw the TV show since it’s received good reviews and seems like the kind of thing that is for me. I have mixed feelings on Carl Hiaasen, though I always enjoy reading his books. They start strong as he lathers on all the Florida-ness he possibly can. The line in this one about how the […]

Reminded me of The Wire, season 4

Da vi var yngre (When we were younger)) by Oliver Lovrenski

by Leave a Comment

Nowhere Books Bingo: A book by a local author Ivor and his three friends Marco, Arjan and Jonas are a tight-knit gang, their own found family. According to Ivor, school used to be easy, until he and his friends lost interest and started making money and names for themselves on the streets. Ignoring the admonition from parents, teachers, social workers and others, they live hard and fast, not really caring who they have to hurt as long as they have each other. Their way of […]

A Prison of a Book

The Curse of the Marquis de Sade by Joel Warner

by Leave a Comment

CBR16 Bingo: Scandal – The Marquis de Sade lived about every year of his life scandalously, and there’s plenty of scandal that follows around the scroll and Aristophil as well. The Marquis de Sade is a divisive figure in literature, with as many people arguing for him being a visionary as there are for him being a mere maniac. But less known is the complicated journey of the manuscript of his best-known work The 120 Days of Sodom and how it came to be involved in a […]

Greatest? City in the World

Manhattan Noir by ed. Lawrence Block

by Leave a Comment

Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: ring. One of the suggestions for this category was “reaching for the brass ring.” Many move to Manhattan to reach for the brass ring. Most of these stories are about how they failed.  Sorry to those who actually read all my reviews because I know I repeat myself constantly. But man, I just love the Akhasic Noir series. I already love cities, those I’ve been to, lived in, can only dream of. And there’s just nothing better than Manhattan. […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo