Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

She apes Julia Child in her title, but this is a memoir, not a cookbook. #CBRBingo – How To

Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking by Anya von Bremzen

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I feel bad about only giving this one three stars, but I think it accurately reflects my reading experience. I had to read this by e-book, and that just isn’t a format that works perfectly for me, except for when I’m reading romance or fanfic. I had a hard time focusing on it. When I was able to focus, it was clear that von Bremzen was a good writer, with things to say. She writes about food, and her experiences around, so very well. This […]

“Seriously, my friend’s daughter is constantly misgendered because she favours clothes with dinosaurs on. EVERYONE KNOWS ALL DINOSAURS WERE BOYS AND THAT’S WHY THEY’RE EXTINCT.”

The Gender Games by Juno Dawson

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Been sitting on this review for two months now, trying to land on a star rating, and how to articulate what I wanted to say. Ultimately, this is a good book that is part memoir and part feminist/social text about being transgender (with a focus on the UK), with some intersectional feminist ideas thrown in. It’s also written in a very colloquial, humorous style that is very much not the norm for these kinds of books. This is what threw me, because I couldn’t decide […]

A country without a language is a country without a soul

The Speckled People: A Memoir of a Half-Irish Childhood by Hugo Hamilton

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The speckled people is a memoir of a childhood in Ireland in the 1950’s, growing up between languages. Hugo’s mother is a german emigrant and his father is an Irish nationalist determined that his children will revive the Irish language. Hugo himself is just a boy who wants to fit in with the other kids – who all speak English. The book is written in a soft language, floating in and out of the memories of a young boy. His father is a brutal tyrant […]

Technocracy

Uncanny Valley: A Memoir by Anna Wiener

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By design, I know as little about the tech world as possible. I’ve never spent time in northern California, rarely read tech articles (except if they’re bashing the gaetekeepers of social media), and just generally avoid news of that world. I’ve been dipping my toe in the water lately, first with Bad Blood and now this one. That has less to do with curiosity about the world they depict and more to their popularity. I’m glad this one was written by someone my age because I don’t […]

“Being poor, living in poverty, seemed a lot like probation – the crime being a lack of means to survive.”

Maid by Stephanie Land

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This was good, but I’m not going to shout to the rooftops over it. I can’t say I was really disappointed by expectations on this one, because I didn’t have any. It was only until about halfway through that I found myself wishing the book was something else, and that’s not the author’s fault. The cover and blurb are sort of misleading. This isn’t a book about what it’s like to be a maid, with hard-hitting social criticism or research. It’s a straight-up memoir about […]

“‘You never forget a beautiful thing that you have made,’ he said. ‘Even after you eat it, it stays with you – always.”

My Life in France by Julia Child

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This was such a lovely reading experience, for lots of reasons. I felt refreshed while reading it, and afterwards. I’ve since made a little hobby of revisiting old episodes of The French Chef on YouTube because they are calming and delightful (and I can make a French omelet now!). I spent a lot of time in my childhood watching PBS because my dad was cheap and wouldn’t pay for cable, so that meant lots of Julia Child. I remember not caring so much about the […]



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