Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Circle Is Complete

The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder by Lawrence Block

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Read as part of CBR15Bingo: nostalgia. This is the final book of a favorite series and it takes me back to when I began the series, as well as taking me back to a New York City that no longer exists. Fifteen years ago (fifteen!), I passed a rainy afternoon while on internship to read a Matthew Scudder book by Lawrence Block. I didn’t know it was the second in a long-running series; I had just grabbed it off a cart. It was fine. I […]

Nostalgic Earworms Ahead!

Skinnamarink by Sharon, Lois & Bram w/Randi Hampson; Ill by Qin Leng

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My memories of childhood are exceptionally vivid: I probably can’t tell you if I ate breakfast or not, but if you want to know who I sat next to in third grade, or every phone number of anybody I was friends with before I went to college, I got you. I only mention this because Sharon, Lois, & Bram feature heavily in my memories from about age 5 till about 10, and they made such an impact that some things, like the beloved-in-our-house “Skimmarink” song, […]

Running away to Nostalgia Island

Five on a Treasure Island by Enid Blyton

Five Run Away Together by Enid Blyton

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CBRBingo:  Free! (birthday gift); Shelfie I rescued these books from the garage sale my brother and I were holding after clearing out our childhood home following the death of our father and out mother’s move to aged care.  I was flying back home afterwards, so needed to be selective with the mementos I would take with me.  I almost let these go, but I got them from my parents for my tenth birthday and loved them so much as I child that I took them […]

Misty water-colored memories…. (CBR12Bingo 2: Nostalgia)

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

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So, this book is set in 2011, and I was getting married that year at age 25. Not strictly my teen years. However, I’m counting it for two reasons – 1) 9/11/2001 is key to the plot, when I was an actual sophomore in high school, and 2) though the Harry Potter books exist in this universe, Simon Snow is very very very obviously a Harry Potter analogue, and the penultimate book in that series was released in 2005, when I was in my first […]

Work, Love, and Politics

Special Interests by Emma Barry

Private Politics by Emma Barry

Party Lines by Emma Barry

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This review is going to be a lot about me, but in case this becomes a tl/dr situation – I enjoyed these books very much and you might too. I miss living in Washington DC so much. I miss the person I was trying to be in my late 20s-early 30s. I love a lot about who I am now, but I don’t feel like I personally can make the world a better place anymore. Reading Emma Barry’s The Easy Part series, Special Interests, Private […]

No One Sings Like You Anymore

Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge by Mark Yarm

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Two things relating to the music I liked back then happenend in 1994 that left a deep impression on teenage me. In April, Kurt Cobain died, and I was absolutely shocked and remained glued to MTV for days. Like so many others, I had become a grunge fan when I discovered Nevermind, and I could not quite grasp that he had shot himself. A few weeks later I bought Soundgarden’s Superunknown which just blew my mind with the insane guitar tunings they used, the incredible […]



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