Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Memories of forgetting disappear

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

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“People – and I’m no exception – seem capable of forgetting almost anything, much as if our island were unable to float in anything but an expanse of totally empty sea.” The Memory Police enforce the forgetting of the things that are disappeared from an unnamed island inhabited by an unnamed author.  From time to time, the people of the island wake up with the restless knowledge that something else is gone and banish any contrary evidence from their homes, towns and minds.  Things disappear, […]

When History Repeats itself

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei

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#crb11bingo #TrueStory I am going to write WOW 200 times and OMG for the other 50 words. I am also going to say this the second draft of my review. I found myself just going on about all the little, amazing details to the story. I was near 500 words and could have written another 500. They Called Us Enemy is George Takei’s story in a graphic novel format. Along with Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott and Harmony Becker the reader sees the years from early/mid-1940s […]

Very skeptical going in to this, but I quite enjoyed myself. Thanks, Read Harder!

Orange: The Complete Collection, Vol. 1 by Ichigo Takano

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This wasn’t my first manga, but it was the first I enjoyed. I tried Sailor Moon years ago, and was super not into it. In hindsight, I may have been unfair to it, and being unfamiliar with the conventions of manga and anime probably contributed, but still. Not a fan. But I was into this right away! I probably wouldn’t have ever picked it up, despite several friends having read and enjoyed it, except for the Read Harder Challenge this year (thanks Read Harder, doing […]

The Convenience of Individuality

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

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This is one of those strange little books that I found reaffirmed my belief in the idea of being true to yourself. There are a lot of platitudes about that concept, mostly Disney-fied or Rom-Comish in execution, and those platitudes always ring hollow to me. They seem sacharine, or manipulative, or frustratingly narrow in execution. What Sayaka Murata offers in Convenience Store Woman is a character so out of synch with the rest of her society, but so in synch with the world of her […]

Historical Fluffiness from the Forties

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Lisa See, the author of [i]Snow Flower and the Secret Fan[/i], which was a really good book, has delivered a less interesting and slightly faded remix of the same themes Snow Flower had – namely, friendship and Chinese culture. The characters are wooden: good-girl Grace, scandalous Ruby, cantankerous Helen. The story limps along like a wounded homing pigeon, following the “glamour” of the Forties while skipping any of the realities of the second World War. (It does make an appearance, as do the Japanese internment […]

Land of the Free, Some Restrictions Apply

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I could have easily read this book from cover to cover in a day if I’d had the time. Not only is only a short 149 pages but the writing flows so beautifully that I hated having to put it down and deal with my real life (I mean, more so than when I’m reading normally). The writing is lyrical and the scope is both intimate and simultaneously sweeping. The Buddha in the Attic would make excellent supplementary reading for a college or high school […]



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