Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I spent New Year’s Day in Hogwarts.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter, #1) by J.K. Rowling

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First of all I have read this book more times than I can count, literally. I know I’ve read this first one at least twelve times because that’s how many copies of it I own, but that is a gross underestimate because many of those copies I have read multiple times (especially the battered paperback I still have from 1999). I also used to re-read every year, and every time a new book in the series came out, so I’ve read this one the most. My OCD […]

I mean, it WAS

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So yes, my bingo square for “The Book Was Better” was indeed filled by a better book than a movie, but I tried to make it the fairest fight in the Harry Potter series; I wonder how much better the movies would have been with Alfonso Cuaron behind the camera for all of them. The filmed sequences that stood out for me were Buckbeak’s execution, the first appearance of the Dementors, and the staging of the adventures with the Time Turner, but honestly, this is […]

Octothorp and the restoration of memory

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Look at em, y’all.  They’re fetuses.  But then again, so was I the last time I read these books. Hoping to re-read the series before CBR10 closes, book two of the Harry Potter series marking my “throwback” square. Kind of glad I’m re-reading these now, as I intended to read them to the octolet as bedtime stories in a couple years (he’s not quite two right now), as I remembered how the series does such a good job maturing at the same pace as it’s […]

#CBR10Bingo: Award Winner – Malin reads another book she’s owned for many years (Bingo #8)

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#CBR10Bingo: Award Winner (LA Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller 2013 and an Anthony Award for Best Audio Book in 2014) Supermodel Lula Landry topples from her third floor balcony and cracks her head open on the snow-covered pavement far below. Strangely, the paparazzi that were surrounding her apartment building earlier in the evening were nowhere to be seen when it happened. After careful investigation, the police rule the death a suicide, although the tabloids have all manner of conspiracy theories, the most popular being that she […]

I would have less rage watching this, because I would not have to experience the awful stage directions!

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I’m a big Harry Potter fan.  I went to the midnight book and movie releases, I have Harry Potter merch, I know what house I’m in. (Gryffindor who wants to be a Hufflepuff, in case you were wondering.)  So I bought this when it first came out. Did I read it? No. And I don’t have very high expectations going into it. Because I’m the Harry Potter fan who reads fanfiction.  I’ve been reading fanfiction for over 10 years.  And in those 10+ years, I’ve […]

Fahrenheit 666, or how I learned to start worrying and love the resistance

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 (Double bingo!) It feels like I’m cheating to count this as my banned book “Fahrenheit 451” square, because in the nearly 20 years since I read this the first time it’s become omnipresent. Not that it wasn’t a hit even when I picked it up the first time around in the middle school library where my mom worked, killing time between the end of my school day and her closing hours with an endless supply of books, but the popularity explosion and merchandise inundation really […]



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