Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Few Rules for Predicting the Future: An Essay by Octavia E. Butler

A Few Rules for Predicting the Future: An Essay by Octavia E. Butler

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Wow. This was so well done. I loved the text and the illustrations. Butler talks about how easy it is to predict what is going to come based on the past and how she used that to inspire her writing. This is organized around full main rules that I loved: 1. Learn from the Past 2. Respect the Laws of Consequence 3. Be Aware of Your Perspective 4. Count on the Surprises And I loved how it ended: So why try to predict the future […]

Frequent Tension Made It Hard to Put Down

Kindred by Octavia Butler

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This was such an intense book. I have never been this on edge for this many pages at a time when reading, which speaks to Butler’s ability to build tension and dread in this novel about slavery. We follow the first person perspective of 26-year-old Dana who one day is suddenly yanked from 1976 to the early 1800s, where she helps a drowning boy. Soon after she time travels back to her home and her husband Kevin to find that only seconds had passed. This […]

Classic Sci-Fi: Should you read it? Octavia E. Butler

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler

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Classic Sci-Fi: Should You Read It? is a self-imposed project in which I read pre-1990 science fiction novels and categorize them as “classis sci-fi you should read,” “classic sci-fi you should read if you’re all hardcore about it,” or “classic sci-fi you don’t have to read.” For background on my project, please see the introduction to my review of 1984. I’m working on a review of Octavia E. Butler’s Dawn/Xenogenesis and struggling to place it in the context of all which came before it (relatively speaking). […]

a thousand apologies and what feels like a thousand reviews (through November 2023)

Edinburgh by Alexander Chee

The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Kindred by Octavia E Butler

Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Hinumegin er mars by Sólrun Michelsen

Trust by Hernan Diaz

How Westminster Works . . . and Why It Doesn't by Ian Dunt

Happy Place by Emily Henry

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones

The Establishment: And How They Get Away with It by Owen Jones

In the Beginning was the Sea by Tomás González

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

The City & the City by China Miéville

A History of Burning by Janika Oza

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert

Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent by Dipo Faloyin

Passion Simple by Annie Ernaux

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Forget Me Not by Julie Soto

Hotel of Secrets by Diana Biller

The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain by Brett Christophers

The Late Mrs. Willoughby by Claudia Gray

Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon

A Tempest at Sea by Sherry Thomas

Politics On the Edge: A Memoir From Within by Rory Stewart

Rivals by Katherine McGee

Reign by Katherine McGee

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

The Iliad by Homer, Emily Wilson

Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America by Michael Harriot

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

10 Things that Never Happened by Alexis Hall

The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

The Fraud by Zadie Smith

A Dangerous Kind of Lady by Mia Vincy

A Little Life by Hanya Yanighara

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

The Starting Over Game by girl_with_kaleidoscope_eyes

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Edinburg by Alexander Chee CBR15: Sex True fact, when someone British asked me what I was reading I pronounced this “Edin-BERG” and to their credit they didn’t laugh but instead asked, with some horrified sincerity, if that’s how Americans say it. It’s not! At least, not on purpose. It’s just how can the English language claim to have been invented in a country that seems to not have grasped even a shred of understanding of how the various letters in it work? I digress. This is […]

CBR Bingo 15: On the Road

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

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This book could fit into several of Bingo categories, and sadly has been banned in some places (usual suspects). Written in 1993 and set in 2025, The Parable of the Sower is a frighteningly plausible story about a world impacted by climate change, political breakdown and economic and social inequity. The protagonist, Lauren Olamina, is a black teenager who has grown up outside of Los Angeles. Cars are a thing of the past, electricity is scarce and becoming scarcer. There is little rain to grow […]

Short story review dump (Part III)

Mono no aware by Ken Liu

The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu

The Hofzinser Club by Michael Chabon

The Baboon War by Nnedi Okorafor

Childfinder by Octavia E. Butler

The Five-Forty-Eight by John Cheever

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Mono no Aware by Ken Liu (5 stars) Mono no aware is a Japanese phrase meaning “the pathos of things”. It’s the bittersweet feeling of sadness at the impermanence of things, a careful blend of appreciation and sadness that nothing can last forever. It’s the phrase I didn’t know that I needed in my life – but I think I do, because I experience it fairly often. I think it’s one of the reasons I love Haruki Murakami’s work so much. There is a delicate […]



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