April 2020
MsWas's Message Corner
Hello CBR12 participants and friends of Cannonball Read,
It’s been quite a month since our last newsletter on March 12th. How have you been holding up? I’ve talked to many of you when contacting you about featuring your review, and it’s so great to hear from you, can’t wait to “speak” to more of you. I hope you are doing ok.
Folks have said they’re having a hard time reading and reviewing, and I totally get that. I hope you’ll stop by our site, though, and comment and encourage those of us who have been able to wade through the muck of the pandemic to hit that ‘publish’ button.
Or you could check out some of my favorite posts like the gif-tastic reviews of the Bible by PattyKates. This duo will crack. you. up. with their take on Genesis. I’ve always had a soft spot for ingres77’s review of Moby Dick, in 2015 emulating Melville’s prose. You might take a look at who’s been reading that book you stalled on, or see why KimMiE" just could not finish And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer. (Yes, books you didn’t finish can count in your CBR total.)
Then there’s all of the reviews of the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny. I think my rave recommendation from back in 2015 turned a bunch of you on to these cozy mysteries (I hope!), and it’s always a pleasure to find that a friend loved a book I recommended. The series is lovely - and the food! I’m getting hungry thinking of all of those meals Penny aptly describes. Oh for a good baguette or brioche right now!
Well folks, I hope you are hanging in there, and I hope you find a yummy treat today and maybe a tempting book.
Take care and Happy Reading!
Bonnie (aka "MsWas")
Q&A with a Cannonballer: Blauracke
 Are your local libraries closed? Is that cramping your CBR style? Where do you normally get your books (e-reader, libraries, bookstores, loans from friends, etc.)?
Yes, the libraries are closed at the moment, but you can still borrow e-books online from them. I usually don’t have a problem finding books to read because I inherited a ton of books from my father that I am slowly making my way through. This is where most of the European literature and the classics that I read come from. For other needs, I mostly buy e-books from bookstores because I just don’t have a lot of space left on my shelves. I didn’t think that I needed or wanted an e-reader for the longest time, but I’ve really become accustomed to using one because they are just so convenient, especially if you have a space shortage.
Bookstagram challenge
Want even more book-related fun? Join our instagram challenge, and post pictures of love stories, coffee table books, themes and styles, genres and topics. For example, today's topic is Rainbow, so interpret that as you will: a pic of a Rainbow Rowell book? Something brightly colored? You decide, and don't forget to tag #CBRbookgram.
International Children's Book Day
As part of International Children's Book Day, many celebrities posted videos of themselves reading children's books. Our own celebrity, MsWas, joined in with The Owl and the Pussycat. Other Cannonballers got in on the fun too, but unless the book was in the public domain, those were only shared in the Facebook group. Thanks to all who participated!
First quarter donation
Donations have gotten a little skewed lately with all the Amazon link hullaballoo, but we're still committed to our mission of raising money for the American Cancer Society. For the first quarter of 2020 (and man, it's been a doozy!), we've donated $75. Thanks as always for all your support (and for your flexibility especially this quarter)! To help boost our numbers for next quarter, find out more about how you can donate.
Want to volunteer with all your new spare time?
Are you bored while you're sheltering in place? Care to learn a new skill (or polish an old one)? We're looking for two genres of volunteers. We need an analytically-minded soul to help ingres77 with stats, and a few artistically-minded graphic designers to donate designs for our merch store. Graphic designers get credit on the merchandise page, and a link to your portfolio. See your designs on pillows, tote bags, shirts, and more, and get your name out there for a good cause!
Style Tip: block quotes
If you want to jazz up your reviews a bit, consider the use of blockquotes. If you want to quote a favorite line from the book you're reviewing, or a chunk of text that's just too good not to share with your fellow Cannonballers, click the button that looks like quotation marks in WordPress.
If you're fancy and want to use html code to call our your favorite passage, it's <blockquote></blockquote> - in the Text tab.
When you publish your review, it looks like this:
Go forth and format!
#CannonBookClub
On June 19 and 20, the #CannonBookClub will have a The Future is Queer theme. Celebrate Pride Month the Cannonball way, with a focus on speculative and science fiction written by queer authors and/or featuring queer characters. Instead of everybody reading the same book, there's a short list for you to choose from. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!
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Apr 15, 2020 08:31 pm
This is memoir by Maggie Nelson, who I’ve previously read her newer book The Argonauts. This book is from 2009. In this memoir, which is not at all structured like a traditional memoir, follow Nelson in the years after she’s published a poetry collection called Jane which is about the murder of her aunt, and included decolletage of her aunt’s diaries cut into various of the poems. There’s a moment where Nelson tells us how violating it feels to have someone read a diary when they’re living, but […]
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Apr 15, 2020 08:23 pm
This is a recently translated collection by the Japanese writer Yukiko Motoya. You should read the first story and just decide from there. The tone of that story and the weird, curious, funny, and subtle tone of the lead story will basically sell you on the book or usher you aside. In the opening story, a married woman who feels like her husband is no longer paying attention to her takes up an offer for 100 free gym lessons not to lose weight as the […]
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Apr 15, 2020 08:15 pm
I loved this book. I think you might too if you’re a fan of self-referential books with a sense of humor and wryness about them, but especially books like I Love Dick by Chris Krause and After Claude by Iris Owens. So the book is a third person account of a mostly true or probably true or kind of true story of Michelle Tea as a mostly functional drug addict and alcoholic in Los Angeles in the late 1990s. It’s not an addiction, except that it is, but […]
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Apr 15, 2020 07:58 pm
Yes, I know that Hamilton and Tudor England are not the same thing, but we all know that history is decided by the survivors. Who won? Whoever died last. Who was paid, how much was spent, who wielded the most glorious or secret power, who promised what to where- it does not matter. Thomas Cromwell, in the moment at least, lost. He was *centuries old spoiler alert* beheaded, and spent the last several hundred years painted as a scoundrel and a cheat. Many called him a […]
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Apr 15, 2020 06:32 pm
Although Nicaragua is important to me for family reasons (my brother has lived there for the last 5 years), the more I learn about its history the more I think everyone- particularly Americans- would find it fascinating and should be learning about it. Blood of Brothers is history filtered through memoir, narrated by being Stephen Kinzer, formerly an NYT bureau chief stationed in Nicaragua. Kinzer lived in Nicaragua during its tumultuous and horrific civil war, book ended with the Sandinistas ousting the brutal Somoza dictators […]
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Amanda Howard (aka "Bothari43")
The Cannonball Read Newsletter Editor
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