Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

And another thing, I couldn’t even finish this book

And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer

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Not long ago on Facebook, someone posed the question, “When do you give up on a book and stop reading?” I thought about this and determined that, if I look at how many pages I have left in a book and I’m actively dreading it, that’s when I quit. I had 188 pages left in And Another Thing when I just couldn’t stand it anymore. God knows I don’t quit a book likely. I’ve slogged through my share of banality and dreck just to give […]

Love is powerful and wonderful and ridiculous

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

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“Is it ridiculous for a very small, sickly, big-eared mouse to fall in love with a beautiful human princess named Pea? The answer is . . . yes. Of course it’s ridiculous. Love is ridiculous. But love is also wonderful. And powerful. And Despereaux’s love for the Princess Pea would prove, in time, to be all of these things: powerful, wonderful, and ridiculous.” With that sentence, this Newbery Medal winner won my heart. The Tale of Despereaux is a classic fairy tale with a knight […]

An ode to punctuation, or erotica for grammar geeks

Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks by Keith Houston

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Supporting players against a sea of commas, exclamation points, and other heroes of the written word, These quiet champions of our language get the spotlight thanks to Keith Huston’s Meticulous research and witty pen. Like gentle pilcrow, Who started as “kaput” Then changed to  “c” To mark the start of each new paragraph.     ‘Til rubricators came along to flourish her: thus, the backwards P was born. Live on, Pilcrow, in proofers’ marks and MS Word, though hidden as you are behind your secret […]

So many Cannonballers can’t be wrong

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

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I’ve seen Liane Moriarty’s books getting mostly positive reviews on this site, so when I saw a random copy of Big Little Lies in the break room at work, nestled among old business standbys like Good to Great and piles of free Westways magazines, I snatched it up. I am not the target demographic for this novel. I am not a suburban housewife, nor a single mother, nor a grade school teacher, all of whom would be able to identify with the characters more than I […]

Women behaving badly, 19th century Norwegian realism edition

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

Hedda Gabler by Herik Ibsen

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Last year I took note of the Chancellor’s review of A Doll’s House, and realized that I had never actually read the drama, in spite of my admiration for Ibsen (An Enemy of the People was a high school favorite of mine). Wanting to rectify that, and thinking it would be interesting to also revisit Hedda Gabler, I decided to read both plays back to back and see what themes they have in common. My conclusion is that a repressed woman in the 19th century […]

The most beautiful book about the end of the world you’ll ever read

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

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When I read that Station Eleven would be a book club read, I decided to borrow it from my local library. I wasn’t familiar with it, but I knew that it came recommended by many in the CBR community. I had no idea this book would be so beautiful and so moving, the first book I’ve read in 2020 that I truly love. Station Eleven is the story of our world before and after its collapse as the result of a pandemic so devestating that […]



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