Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A flawed but engaging read that has taken me about 13 years to read.

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

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I’m not sure when I first became aware of this book, but I bought it over a decade ago, before I met my wife. Before I had much of a life to speak of. Recently separated and having lost a fairly good job in the midst of what felt like a pretty terrible economic meltdown, I was going through my own little existential crisis. Working two jobs that weren’t really sufficient, I was struggling to find myself – to find meaning and purpose, a sense […]

…a voice on the radio offering a loom on which to spin his dreams.

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

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CBR15 BINGO (On the Air square: Lots about radios and radio communication) BINGO! Dwelling to On The Air This is going to be a terrible review. I liked this book too much and generally, when that happens I freeze when trying to review it. Doerr’s book won the Pulitzer nearly a decade ago. I’ve had this book recommended to me countless times and, as is often the case with books everyone raves about, I put it on my virtual TBR pile and forget about it. Why do I […]

“That we have some history together that hasn’t happened yet.”

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

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Why do I keep waiting so long to dig into word-of-mouth and critically acclaimed smashes? Twelve years later (and not a moment too soon), I finally get The Fuss around A Visit From the Goon Squad. I remember reading The Keep near the official release date, but Goon Squad eluded me for over a decade…or perhaps I eluded it? On the upside of being a latecomer, I am more likely to find these books in my neighborhood’s Little Free Libraries. Hooray! I love how “a novel” is emphasized on […]

Long, yes; lovely, yes

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

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I’m staring at a 771-page novel, replete with sticky notes I’ve placed to mark passages of interest, and I don’t know where to begin. The Goldfinch is an epic tale encompassing themes of loss, fate, friendship, family, love, accountability, and the nature of art. This is a novel for which future teachers of American literature will assign very specific essay topics to their students, such as “Describe Andy’s relationship with water and how it correlates to his relationship with his family,” or “What makes art […]

I know him, that can’t be

John Adams by David McCullough

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One of my first favorite books was Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes. It won the Newberry Medal in 1944 and I must have read a dozen times starting in fourth or fifth grade. Since then, I have loved revolutionary America. Naturally then, I’ve wanted to read this book for quite some time. I read 1776, also by David McCullough, while in college and found myself interested in this book.  As a history major, I didn’t specialize in any specific era but colonial America would have […]

Pivotal but not admirable

American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham

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I’ve read a lot about how awful Andrew Jackson was, especially the last four years. Jackson owned slaves and believed unequivocally in the “supreme race”. His racism almost certainly fueled his desire to remove Native Americans from their homes and force them away from white settlements. This book won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for what author Jon Meacham’s hometown newspaper, the Chattanooga Times Free Press call “an unflinching portrait of a not always admirable democrat but a pivotal president, written with an agile prose […]



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