Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

No star burns forever

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

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I have been really looking forward to reading this and for me it did not disappoint at all. I’m definitely a fan of Emily St. John Mandel, and I love authors who build an entire universe out of their characters without deliberately building a series / sequels. You can pick up any of her novels and see that they’re companions, without needing to read them in a particular order. I think it’s important to say that so anyone who is completely new to Emily St. […]

May 2022 Leftovers

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Hollywood Godfather: My Life in the Movies and the Mob by Gianni Russo

Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier by Mark Frost

Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara

American Tabloid by James Ellroy

Hot Springs by Stephen Hunter

Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier

Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier

Dead Soon Enough by Steph Cha

Bullet Train by Kōtarō Isaka

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Here are the books I read in May 2022 that I didn’t get to give a full review for whatever reason. I read a lot of authors of AAPI descent; their books were all wonderful in their own respective ways… Sea of Tranquility **** Unquestionably a metacommentary on the author’s Station Eleven success in the shadow of Covid-19, it’s a beautifully written reflection on finding peace and contentment in the uncertainties of life. I don’t know that I enjoyed it as much as others did given […]

Longing for the sound of an electric guitar

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

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I finally put this on my reading list after one of the CBR13 happy hours. Someone mentioned that Emily St. John Mandel had a new book coming out that they were looking forward to, and somehow I pulled that thread and made my way back to Station Eleven. I had been aware of it before that conversation, yet the blurb had never struck my fancy, likely because I have a very complicated relationship with dystopian fiction. Frankly, and as has been noted on this site […]

“We knew it was coming, but we behaved inconsistently.”

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

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Reading Emily St. John Mandel is like falling asleep to the sound of rain: The words wash over you and a steady drumbeat of beauty lulls you into something like perfect contentment. Just reading the loveliness of her sentences would be enough, but then she continues to dazzle by leading your thoughts into new possibilities about the universe, as your mind is apt to drift to questions of cosmic import in the moments before sleep, while those steady drops beat against your windowpane. It’s hard […]

A quietly thrilling side-quel to The Glass Hotel in the key of Cloud Atlas

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

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I would list the HBO Max adaptation of Station Eleven as one of the few adaptations better than the book it came from. I loved that mini-series and thought it both illuminated and improved the source material. I do not feel it is a slight to Emily St. John Mandel to say that, as she was heavily involved in the adaptation. Mandel is one of the most interesting authors working right now. She is enormously talented at world-building and tight, beautiful prose. However, her characters […]

MASTERPIECE.

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

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I was originally tempted to just post this whole novel as one giant (and perfect) quotation. We knew it was coming but we behaved inconsistently. We stocked up on supplies-just in case-but sent our children to school, because how do you get any work done with the kids at home? (We were still thinking in terms of getting work done. The most shocking thing in retrospect was the degree to which all of us completely missed the point.) One day, when we look back at […]



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