Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“But the soul finds its own home if it ever has a home at all.”

Home by Marilynne Robinson

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Glory Boughton has returned to the small town of Gilead to take care of her dying father, the Reverend John Boughton. As the youngest of 8 children, she has spent her whole life trying to escape her role as the “baby” of the family and build a life outside of her childhood home. But as a failed engagement coincides with her father’s illness, Glory finds herself back in Gilead, wondering if it can ever truly be a home. Glory’s brother, Jack, is also back in […]

Ah, the difficulties of shrugging off expectations

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

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Bingo: Home I had come across Housekeeping on almost every “100 books you must read before you die” list, but, like a teenager, I am immediately put off when a book is included on a list like that. (I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling that way.) So it wasn’t until a very good friend of mine mentioned it was one of her favorite novels that I decided to pick it up. Ruth and Lucille are young sisters living in the small lakeside town of Fingerbone. […]

So I guess I panicked from the word go.

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The Bus on Thursday – 4/5 Stars This was an audiobook and I hadn’t heard of it before I looked a little into and downloaded it from Overdrive. Also, had this not been Australian I might not have listened to it, and had I read the back I wouldn’t either. I also almost turned it off early on because of a kind of off-key line that I didn’t like. But something clicked in my experience at some point and I ended up really liking it. […]

44: A mixed bag of essays

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I’m fairly mixed on Marilynne Robinson’s novels. I hated Housekeeping, but loved Gilead. I liked Home and Lila okay, though neither got to the level of the first novel in the sequence. I had never read any of her nonfiction, but I couldn’t resist What Are We Doing Here? when I saw it in the library. I had read Robinson’s interview with President Obama and enjoyed it thoroughly, so I wanted to see how her newest nonfiction would go. Robinson writes on a huge variety […]

‘Gilead’ Is A Balm For Trump’s America

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  “This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.” Last week was a hard week for many of us. Facing the reality of Trump’s inauguration, I needed a book that was beautiful, calming, and familiar. As big as my stack of “to be read” books was, I needed something that I knew would give me temporary comfort. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson was really my only option. A favorite of President Obama’s (and a Pulitzer winner), Gilead tells the story […]

Not as transformative as its predecessor, but beautiful nonetheless

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About a year ago, I picked up a stunning book that quickly became my go-to book recommendation. Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Gilead was about an elderly, dying pastor. Desperate to leave something of himself behind to his young son, Reverend John Ames composed letter after letter to the boy, talking about his life, his insecurities, his love of family, his faith in God, and his unshakable belief that the world was a beautiful gift. Astonishingly written, Gilead was a meditation on what it meant […]



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