Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

How do you tell the story of the end of the world?

Station 11 by Emily St John Mandel

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I’m no novice to the world of apocalypse fiction, having cut my teeth on Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’ when I was 13 years old. The virus apocalypse, the zombie apocalypse… honestly, it’s my favourite genre. So when I kept seeing Station 11 recommended as a stand-out apocalyptic fiction book, written by a woman no less, I was eager to dive in. I’d describe this novel as softly written… lingering like a nice mellow merlot. There is no cataclysmic event (Without Warning). No grand worldwide scale […]

“There are certain qualities of light that blur the years.” (CBR10Bingo Blackout!)

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I apologize now, this review will not really be a review. It is more a love letter to our community here at Cannonball Read. Of the ten books we had to choose from for So Popular, I had read most, but not all. The ones I haven’t read I don’t care to (looking at you, Divergent) so I was thinking about re-reading Eleanor & Park to go with last year’s re-read of Attachments or maybe The Martian to see if I still had a book […]

Makes you think twice about the sick people on the plane with you…

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I would give this a solid 4.5 stars (rounded up here). This book has been on my to-read list for over a year, and I finally was able to walk away from my ongoing series to listen to this one. It was an excellent audiobook, I really enjoyed the narration. Short synopsis: It’s the end of the world as we know it… there is a virus that wipes out 99.99% (est.) of the human population. The book primarily follows a few key characters throughout their […]

Walk the Tarnished World

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I think what I loved best about this book were its nooks and crannies.  This is a book obsessed with tiny detail.  Instead of feeling overwhelming or tedious, these details make the world seem lived-in and solid.   For all the detail, however, the book still manages to feel dreamy and atmospheric.  I wanted to wander with the Wandering Symphony for 300 more pages. Read the rest at Pop Culture Penalty Box.

Because Survival Is Insufficient

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Oh God, this book….this wonderful, wonderful book. The present-day world is crumbling as a deadly flu pandemic spreads like wild-fire and kills its victims in under 48 hours. Within weeks the entirety of modern civilization has been reduced to buildings full of corpses and eternal traffic jams of driverless cars. Air travel is history, satellites go down, the internet disappears, lights go out, and the world is plunged into the literal dark ages.  So why is this wonderful? Mandel takes what could be just another […]



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