So my CBR9 didn’t go quite as planned. I took on a lot of extra work for my job, which cut down on my reading, and was sick for a pretty large chunk of the year, so I’m not going to really come close to the double cannonball I had planned. Still, what amounts to basically a one-and-a-half cannonball is nothing to sneeze at. The Passage by Justin Cronin (4 stars) I’m having trouble wrapping my head around the apparent fact that “only” 10 reviews […]
In Memoriam Heather North
I finished this novel a few days ago, then I saw yesterday that Heather North, the voice of the original Daphne, had just passed away. Thus it seems that this is a perfect time to reflect upon Scooby Doo and his friends. In terms of cartoon analogies, Meddling Kids is closest to the recent Mystery Inc incarnation of the series because of the edgier character relationships and mysteries faced. In the cartoons, there are mysterious helpers some of whom turn out to be evil, and […]
Scratches an itch I didn’t even know I that I had.
I’ve had a pretty good year of discovery here on Cannonball Read. I’ve encountered new authors who wrote books that deeply touched me (Colleen Oakley, Emily St. John Mandel, Peter Heller, Frederick Backman), rediscovered old favorites, explored new worlds opened by trusted authors (Andy Weir and John Scalzi), and been forced to reconcile with my own failures and limitations (Columbine, Chimamanda Ngozi, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Alexander). But there are a handful of books that really stand out, and they aren’t always the best, despite the […]
Well, I think I’ll go and oil my gun.
Opening salvo, hot take: everything Tom Stoppard has ever written is incredible; this isn’t his best work. The Real Inspector Hound is the first live production of a Stoppard play I ever saw, followed about a year and a half later by Arcadia. So, I will always be grateful to Hound for preparing me, because otherwise Arcadia might have melted my brain, and working directly with Tom (humblebrag) on The Coast of Utopia would have been the actual death of me. Hound is a delight. […]