Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled.”

Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury

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While a lot of writing self-help books are about the basic mechanics and rules of good writing, Mr. Bradbury’s Essays on Creativity are more inspirational. He discusses what he has learned in his fifty years of writing and kindly shares it with us. He doesn’t promote so much as show you the path he’s taken. Of course, since his writing is so stellar, it only makes sense that his How To book would also be well-written and interesting. While he doesn’t make checklists, I do, […]

What Book Would You Try and Save?

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation by Tim Hamilton

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I have never read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (long story short, I have issues with classics, which is a little ironic for a former English major). I had no interest in it, other than knowing people considered it a classic and something pretty damn special. I knew people banned it. Which, when you think about it, is terribly amusing (or at least for me). To have a book about the ultimate banning of books being challenged and banned itself? Maybe the irony drives the point […]

First of 3 potential Halloween reads

Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard

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I had to go back through old reviews to see if I’d done this one before, and it turns out that 1) I seem to have done the rest of the series but not this first novel, and 2) a novel from this series was close to my first ever Cannonballer review (third one I think). Good times. I decided to re-read this for 2 reasons: 1) I wanted to do a Halloween read that was not Cassidy Blake 2 because I’m saving that for […]

If Uncle Stevie’s name is on it, odds are I’m going to read it.

Flight or Fright by Stephen King, Bev Vincent

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CBR11bingo #TheCollection Its no secret that I am not a huge fan of flying. I understand that it is the safest way to travel. But I usually choose to drive if I can. I like to be able to choose my own route, to leave when I want to leave, to stop when I want to stop. I like to be in control of my journey. I think the lack of that control in an airplane is part of what makes me uneasy. Oh, and […]

It was a day to be out of bed, to pull curtains and fling open windows.It was a day to make your heart bigger with warm mounain air

The Golden Apples of the Sun by Ray Bradbury

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This is an “early” collection of Ray Bradbury stories, from 1953. These came out a few years after The Martian Chronicles and are collected from about 1948-1953 when the book came out. These feel a lot like many of the pieces from The Martian Chronicles and provides a sense of narrative consistency in his writing. They are not quite pulpy like many of his early stories, mostly involve men and male narrators, and hold up pretty well, especially compared to early collections by other sci […]

Science is no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

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I’d never read this one before, and it feels like I probably should have before now. It’s a good reminder that Bradbury’s writing (from my experience) isn’t often about space travel and other worlds. In the opening introduction, now reflecting back from 40 years since the original publication, Bradbury mentions how Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio is an impetus behind this book — not exactly an inspiration, because the novels aren’t very similar — but more so the motivation to write what he wanted. The book […]



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