Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A fuckin’ great book about swearing.

What the F: What Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves by Benjamin K. Bergen

by Leave a Comment

This was a fun, nerdy, sciencey book that takes something taboo and unserious and treats it seriously, which very much appeals to me. This is going to be a short review, because I read the book back in the beginning of April, and my memories of the specifics have mostly faded. I remember that for the most part, I found it HIGHLY enjoyable. Bergen is a linguist and cognitive scientist, so he’s got all the good details. This book is basically everything I wanted from […]

A mysterious BONK in a story you know

Chicken Little: The Real and Totally True Tale by Sam Wedelich

by Leave a Comment

When I see a book that has a familiar title (Little Red Riding Hood, Chicken Little, Goldilocks) but with a twist (Chicken Little: The Real and Totally True Tale for example) you tend to assume that there will be a core story behind it. And yes, Sam Wedelich does not disappoint. We have one little chicken (but don’t call her that, she is petite). We have a head bonk and we have chickens running around like chickens tend to. The difference here is, this is […]

Middlegame was solidly middle of the pack

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire

by 3 Comments

Roger and Dodger are twins skilled in two separate fields: language and mathematics. Roger understands language: its nuances, its layers, its multitudes. Dodger understands mathematics: its rigor, its structure, its flow. Together they encompass the world, and their “father”, Reed, intends to shape them into gods whether they want to or are ready. Together, Roger and Dodger endeavor to discover themselves and their purpose in a world that either wants to control or destroy them. When I first heard about Middlegame, I was immediately excited. […]

Because language has suffered enough…

Death Sentence: The Decay of Public Language by Don Watson

by Leave a Comment

When I first read the example ‘The competition policy reforms further improve the performance of government business enterprises through a program of regulation review, enhanced prices oversight, application of competitive neutrality principles and procedures for structural reform of public monopolies,’ on p65 of Death Sentence, I didn’t quite get the author’s point. I mean, I understood what it meant. But the next example of language spelled out exactly why a person like me needed to read this book. ‘Language is a key issue of access […]

“A Table of Alphabetical Hard Words”: Our First English Dictionary

The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson

by Leave a Comment

Quite a bit has changed since this book was written; language has changed, attitudes towards language have changed, and culture overall has changed. Some pieces from this book have not aged well; it’s rather dismissive of some languages and cultures (weirdly judgmental over Japanese writing, for example) while being aggressively defensive of others. There is also little-to-no attention paid  to the many additions given to English by marginalized communities; I was surprised to come across very little about the contributions of people of color have […]

Go wash your mouth out

Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang by Max Decharne

by 1 Comment

As someone with a rather vulgar tongue myself, I love the ever-evolving language of slang and so this book was a delight, trawling through its history – how different terms were born, how they have evolved over time (some starting off respectable and becoming vulgar, and vice versa), how slang travels, and the different groups from which these words came. Often indeed very vulgar, derogatory, offensive and so on, slang also shows off best our creativity, imagination and wit, although obviously the perception of whether […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo