Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

My mother called me Silver.

Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson

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I remember when this book came out in 2004. I was in grad school and I had JUST read a bunch of Jeanette Winterson books because of a crush I had on a fellow student, and well, you honestly couldn’t pick a much better writer to share a crush over. I didn’t read this one at the time, and that’s probably for the best as it’s less forceful and passionate than her first few novels (and certainly less crushworthy). It’s still an interesting exploration of […]

As if you weren’t going to read this.

Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson

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This is a very good new novel, and more to the point I think it would likely be enjoyed by many of you all who participate on this site. In a way, it’s a retelling of Frankenstein, and so it revisits a lot of the same themes that that novel does: immortality, hubris, death, revenge, emotional connections, and the relationship between creation and creator, both as it relates to life and people, but also especially art. We find ourselves in two primary storylines, and with some […]

I’m telling you stories. Trust me.

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

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Bingo Square: Back to School Henri works in the kitchens during the Napoleonic Wars. A naive young solider he has nothing but love and admiration for Napoleon and longs to be of service. But as the years pass and the zero winter sets in, Henri becomes disillusioned, especially when he falls in love. Villanelle is a boatman’s daughter of Venice. She has bright red hair and webbed feet and spends her time in the casino, picking pockets and dealing cards. She has literally lost her […]

The Heathen were a daily household preoccupation.

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

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This book brilliantly describes the process of coming to realize the fundamental worldview you’ve held and been exposed to for your whole life is predicated on a clear prejudice and lie about the world. Or at least a heavily crafted set of limitations. Jeanette, the narrator of this story, grows up in a fundementalist Christian community and only really begins to understand the completely bankrupt nature of this community when it turns out she is gay, and when she applies this understanding of herself to the […]

I am good at walking away. Rejection teaches you how to reject.

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It’s hard to think how much good can possibly come from projects like this one. Between the myth series here and the Shakespeare series that’s currently being published by the likes of Jo Nesbo, Margaret Atwood, and Edward St Aubyn, there’s not much in the way of good novels. There’s some interesting takes and various other kinds of things like that, but when a project is sort of “assigned” I think the limits are built in already. It’s the same way about a lot of […]

More random weird books

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Ok so I don’t know if I know what this one is about. I mean I DO but I don’t. This book starts with alternating narrators: one is a giantess in the English Civil War ala ie Cromwell, and another is her adopted ward who is a kind of cross-dressing time-traveler. Ok, so I got 60 words so far. And that’s kind of the whole book? I mean there’s definitely some adventures and mishaps and a lot of craziness. It reads like a a Terry […]



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