Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

At the intersection of spirituality and creativity…

Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson

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For the better part of the last twenty years, Andrew Peterson has been one of my favourite songwriters. Yes, his music is Christian by genre, but not the cheeseball, put on a happy face, not based in reality garbage that you’d hear on Christian radio stations when you’re driving thru the middle of nowhere and that’s the only station that comes in. He’s a brilliant lyricist that isn’t afraid to write songs about real life and all the crap that goes with it. In some […]

Losing His Religion

The Black Mass of Brother Springer by Charles Willeford

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The Black Mass of Brother Springer is a tough book to classify…or even recommend. A biting satire of organized religion, a send up of civil rights through the white gaze, a testimony on the consequences of fragile masculinity. There’s a lot going on here for such a short book. The book’s writer Charles Willeford is one of my favorites. He writes crime novels with a unique voice that’s tough to compare. No less than Quentin Tarantino has said that Willeford is the biggest literary inspiration for […]

Praise the Lord

The Churchgoer by Patrick Coleman

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It’s clear that Patrick Coleman has an axe to grind against evangelical culture. He uses The Churchgoer as an outlet to do so. I’m a Christian and while I’ve always been a mainline Protestant one (translation: a tad more open-minded than many), I’m quite familiar with the evangelical culture Coleman is skewering here. Many of his references and stories brought back flashbacks to my own life. Attendance numbers have steadily declined in these churches for the last decade (reflective of a decline in church attendance amongst all […]

How to create beauty from chaos.

A Beautiful Mess by Danielle Strickland

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Danielle Strickland is a speaker that I have had the privilege to hear several times, and even learn from directly at a conference she taught at. I’m a huge fan of her as a person, and of the work that she does. She’s passionate about empowering women to lead (especially in the church, where sadly, the patriarchy is still often calling the shots) and she’s passionate about justice (working with girls at risk of falling into human trafficking). She’s real and genuine and is someone […]

Great read, unless you’ve heard her speak live.

SelfLess by Megan Marshman

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I picked up this little book after hearing Marshman speak at a conference I was attending. She is an engaging speaker, and was the reason I wanted to attend the conference to begin with. She’s dynamic and hilarious and insightful and real. Just enough sarcasm to be relatable, and full of hilarious anecdotes from her real life to drive home the points she’s making. So I was happy to pick up this book, looking for more of what she has to offer. The book itself […]

I’m not really one for archery anyways…

The Last Arrow by Erwin McManus

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Welp, before I jump into a bingo card, I should PROBABLY get caught up on my review backlog. <sigh> Here we go! I initially heard McManus at a conference, and he is a powerful and dynamic speaker. Then a couple friends suggested this as a book club option. I had read (and enjoyed) a couple of his other books, but this one fell a bit flat for me. The basic premise is to encourage people to not give up on their dreams, passions, and goals. […]



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