Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“There is more than one kind of freedom. . . . Freedom to and freedom from.”

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

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I’ve had The Handmaid’s Tale on my shelf for many months now, but I’ve been avoiding starting it. I wanted to read it, but I felt like I had to be in a certain (untroubled) emotional state to face it, and that’s been a tall order these past couple of years. I recently braced myself and got down to business. Of course I already knew the premise: In the near-future, after the U.S. government has been overthrown and replaced by a patriarchal, Cristhian theonomy, women […]

Not sure if it sparked joy, but it did provide me with some handy tips

Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

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About seven months ago, my husband and I moved temporarily into a small apartment while our home undergoes major renovations. Most of our “stuff” is in boxes in our garage awaiting the day we move back in and unpack. I’ve been looking forward to that event with a mixture of excitement and horror. Remodeling presents us with a clean slate–a chance to organize ourselves and our belongings in a way that will be efficient and aesthetically pleasing. To be frank, I’m worried I’m gonna fuck […]

True life is often much more interesting than fiction

The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies Who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb by Sam Kean

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In the author’s note to The Bastard Brigade, Sam Kean responds to the question, why has he never written a book about physics before? His previous books (which are all fabulous and highly recommended by me) focus on genetics, chemistry, neuroscience, and the atmosphere, even though the author studied physics in college. He explains, “What I really love doing is telling stories, and when I’m planning a book, I look for rip-roarin’ stories first and foremost. I want heroes and villains, conflict and drama, plot twists […]

The 80s were a magical time for dystopian near-future fiction

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd

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“I’m thinking of taking my family and getting out of this country soon, sometime over the next couple of years. It’s cold and it’s mean-spirited, and I don’t like it here anymore.” Surprisingly, the above quotation does not come from V for Vendetta, but from Alan Moore’s 1988 introduction to the graphic novel for the original DC Comics run. At the time, Margaret Thatcher was entering her third term as Prime Minster of the U.K., and Moore was despairing about, among other things, the treatment of […]

“I don’t know why I can’t be like normal people.”

Normal People by Sally Rooney

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I wanted to love this novel. I fully expected to love this novel. At times, I verged on loving this novel. But then, as I got further into it and closer to the end, I gave up the fight. I simply did not like it. I’ve spent the last week pondering why Normal People didn’t work for me. I don’t object to stories about dysfunctional people, and I certainly don’t require a happy ending. But when a novel bums me out, I want it to […]

Enjoyable read, in spite of being the weakest in the series

A Line to Kill by Anthony Horowitz

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Ever since I discovered Anthony Horowitz in 2019, I’ve been catching up on his previously released novels and eagerly awaiting new ones. I was, therefore, delighted to see A Line to Kill, book #3 in Horowitz’s Hawthorne series, gracing bookstore shelves while I was out Christmas shopping last month. I marched up to my husband and announced, “I’m buying this for my dad, but I would also like to add it to my Christmas list.” Because I have a husband who picks up on these types […]



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