Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Dig a Little Deeper, Read a Little Harder

August by Romina Paula, Jennifer Croft (translator)

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For the first time in three years I am giving up on the Read Harder Challenge. Changing jobs in November (yay!) and the coming holiday bonanza has cut more severely than I anticipated into my reading time. I have knocked my review goal down to 75 from 78 and jettisoned four books from my to read list that would have completed this year’s challenge. (Expect to see some of them next year.) The book I didn’t purge was this one, August. One of the challenges […]

Some Odes

Odes to Opposites by Pablo Neruda, Kenneth Krabbenhoft (translator), Ferris Cook (illustrator)

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It has been a couple of years since I read any poetry, and the last time was also at the behest of the fine folks over at Book Riot and their annual Read Harder Challenge. I don’t know if I’m going to manage to complete this year’s challenge by the end of December – I know what books I am going to read for the remaining challenges, but I don’t know that I’ll be able to fit them all in. But I wasn’t going to […]

A Man Called Ove is a Curmudgeon, but One with a Heart

A Man Called Ove by Frederik Backman, Henning Koch (translator), George Newbern (narrator)

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I did a thing I don’t normally do, I watched the movie first. I had gotten A Man Called Ove on Audible some time ago, but kept holding off on it. I tend to pick the audiobook I want to listen to based on its length – how much time do I have to give it right now? Sitting at just over 9 hours you’d think I would have found a few days to listen before now, but I had not. With August quickly getting […]

wtaf

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Ugh. I wish I didn’t have to write this review. I was so excited to read this book and had heard good things about it, but I just hated it. HATED it. The only reason it’s getting two stars instead of one is because the translator handled the prose magnificently. Too bad the story stunk. Out centers on four women who work the night shift making boxed lunches. Masako is the smart one, Yoshi is the kind one, Kuniko is the selfish one, and Yayoi […]

Allende is a Goddess

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, translated by Magda Bogin

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There is so much that Isabel Allende weaves into her writing, it is simply astounding. There is so much history, allegory, and personal stakes woven into the story of one family that it is almost impossible to know where to start. How have I not read this before? Why the holy fucking hell did I have to read Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis when this existed in the world. I COULD HAVE DEMONSTRATED THE STUDY OF LITERARY WORKS IN CONTEXT THROUGH THE STUDY OF WORKS IN […]

Another Attempt with Short Stories

The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami

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I’m at a loss for how to review this book. Earlier today on Facebook I quipped that some reviews just boil down to read it if you want, here’s a plot description. This might be one of those reviews. I had received suggestions to read Murakami based on other authors I liked and a sense of getting out of my own rut. Great! The suggestions were warranted. I did enjoy Murakami’s style, I just didn’t necessarily enjoy the fact that it was encapsulated in short […]



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