Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Author Ponweera has you covered for your reading needs

My Best Friend's Bangles by Thushanthi Ponweera

Crossing the Finish Line by Thushanthi Ponweera

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After reading I Am Kavi by Thushanthi Ponweera, I decided to look for other books by them. I did not expect a lot as I Am Kavi had a feeling of being a first novel and maybe the start of a promising new author for me. And it was new 2023 and I was lucky enough to be reading it in 2025, therefore, I felt I had a good chance of finding more titles. I found out that in 2024 My Best Friend’s Bangles (illustrated […]

“Even the afterlife is designed to keep the masses stupid.”

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

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Bingo: Asia/Oceania; Passport: Sri Lanka Maali Almeida is dead.  He can’t remember exactly what happened, and it takes a while for the reality of his situation to sink in.  Death is confusing, a bureaucratic maze with rules that everyone seems to expect him to already know, and forms that must be filled in before his seven days are up and he must choose what happens next. Maali desperately wants to know how he died.  He can follow his body through the ghost-ridden streets of Colombo […]

“every death is significant, even when every life appears not to be”

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

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I am exhausted: extremely jet-lagged and just submitted materials for my first major deadline of 2023. So what better to do than to review the last book I read in 2022 (finished at approximately 9:30 PM on New Year’s Eve, yes I know how to party), the Booker Prize-winning The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida? 2022 was actually my best year when it comes to attacking the Booker longlist; I read three of the nominees, and all of them were really excellent novels, in extremely divergent ways. […]

An invitation to the party

Rambutan: Recipes from Sri Lanka by Cynthia Shanmugalingam

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Two things, if you like coconut milk and have access to fresh curry leaves (likely at a local Indian grocer), you need this cookbook; secondly, even if you do not like coconut milk and can’t get curry leaves to save your life, you probably still need this cookbook. Go ahead and get it because even if you only read it it’s still worth the money. Cynthia Shanmugalingam’s Rambutan is gorgeous. The photography is luscious. The writing is warm, funny, heartbreaking, and evocative. I can smell […]

“A man without rights in this world is not freed from his responsibilities.”

Amnesty by Aravind Adiga

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My mom is an unrepentant fast-forwarder. Any movie montage, car chase, fight scene, or any extended section of a movie with no dialogue is gonna get fast-forwarded through. (I grew up thinking this was totally normal and acceptable, and have had several boyfriends go “WAIT, what are you DOING?!?!” when I started fast-forwarding through a scene I thought was skippable.) This book, while totally lovely, could definitely have used a fast-forward button. Danny (Dhananjaya) is from Sri Lanka, living illegally in Australia. He came on […]



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