Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Lost Paradise or Far Flung Trailer Park

The Far Land: 200 Years of Murder, Mania, and Mutiny in the South Pacific by Brandon Presser

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CBR16 Bingo – Bananas: A lot of people eat a lot of bananas across several centuries and a number of South Pacific islands. Also, this story is utterly bananas. Several centuries after the mutineers from the HMS Bounty settled Pitcairn Island, author Brandon Presser goes to visit this isolated place, where he tries to understand how the bloody and conflicted past has shaped the present day lives of the descendants. Considering how much I enjoy true crime and strange stories, it’s probably odd that I […]

“Women without prospect, who lead dull earnest lives and rejoice in their petty little pseudo-pleasures, I find quite depressing and despicable.”

The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon, Meredith McKinney (Translator)

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CBR16 Bingo: Vintage – Not only is this a very old book (written about a thousand years ago!), but it is also very much of its time, cataloguing minute happenings in the Empress’s court and listing out the common tastes of the time. Once there was an empress who gave her attendant a bundle of writing paper for making a witty remark. To highlight what a cultured place this court was, the attendant decided to record an amusing hodgepodge of anecdotes, poetry, and things both […]

The Unforgiving Desert

Journal of the Dead by Jason Kersten

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CBR16 Bingo – Fiasco: David and Raffi’s trip into Rattlesnake Canyon is an utter fiasco from start to finish. When authorities find Raffi Kodikian barely alive four days after he and his best friend David Coughlin got lost in an desert canyon, they make a grim discovery. Raffi claims to have stabbed David to death in a mercy killing, but the police suspect the truth may be darker. It was awkward on my way out of the library with this book, because another patron, intrigued […]

“Whatever that story meant, it was mine to tell.”

Adult Drama: And Other Essays by Natalie Beach

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CBR16 Bingo – Liberate: In this exploration of her early adulthood, Beach liberates herself from the petty dramas of her past – especially when it comes to closing the chapter of her toxic friendship with Caroline Calloway. Natalie Beach might have shot to viral fame with her confession to being the ex-best friend and ghost-writer for an infamous influencer, but in this book she takes us on a tour of various other facets of her coming of age, from working in a pencil store to living […]

“You, and only you, are ultimately responsible for who you become and how happy you are” – allegedly, at least.

Girl, Wash your Face by Rachel Hollis

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To reach a happier and more fulfilling life, Rachel Hollis advises you must unlearn the lies you’ve been telling yourself and push yourself beyond whatever limits you assume are there. I am not at all a self-help book reader, though I have plenty of friends who enjoy consume this genre in books and podcasts and social media posts. To each their own, I suppose. But listening to true crime podcasts while walking my dog made me start wondering if we’d ever run across a body […]

“A peace based on injustice is a treacherous sleep whose waking is death. Your honor lies in waking out of it.”

The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore

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This book was infuriating, but very interesting. If you’re looking to rage-out at the patriarchy, The Woman They Could Not Silence will certainly do the trick. But also, because Elizabeth Packard was a badass who changed things for thousands of people in her lifetime and many more into the future, you get a happyish ending as well to lift you back from your cleansing rage. Elizabeth Packard was committed to an asylum in the 1860s by her husband; because he said she was insane, she was […]



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