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Final Standings and the Most Read Books for Last Year's Cannonball Read 10

By Mswas Sawsm | Books | January 22, 2019 |

By Mswas Sawsm | Books | January 22, 2019 |


stan-lee-reading-cropped.jpg

Last year was the tenth anniversary of Cannonball Read, commemorating the first CBR where Prisco challenged AlabamaPink, a fellow Pajiban who was fighting leukemia, to read 100 books in a year. They had some pretty strict requirements, "No books smaller than 200 pages. Short story collections only count if they are at least 6 stories long. No graphic novels." These days at Cannonball Read, you can read pretty much anything: graphic novels, children’s books, cookbooks, self-help books, fiction, non-fiction, romance, speculative fiction, you name it. You just have to be able to write at least 250 words about it. If you’ve got 250 words to say about something you’ve read a) you’re certainly a Pajiban and b) you’d be a perfect Cannonballer (you can register for CBR11 through January 31).

For our anniversary year, we revisited the books that AlabamaPink read and reviewed that terrible year. Check out her list, and click through to read the pre-Disqus comments at the archive.org links. We had a #CannonBookClub about Craig Ferguson’s novel, Between the Bridge and the River that she reviewed in October 2008; and there was an AlabamaPink challenge square on our inaugural Book Bingo Reading Challenge to read one from her list. While Cannonballers pretty much agreed that Ferguson’s first novel was not as good as his memoir American on Purpose, they also agreed that CBR10 Bingo was a huge success. (Look for it again this year in July!)

The first Cannonballer to complete a Cannonball (52 books) in 2018 was vel veeter, with his review of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. For the second year in a row, vel veeter read and reviewed the most books  - 501 books! You can read our interview of vel veeter and meet this speed demon to see what makes him tick.

Spiderman reading.

Overall CBR10 Stats:

Reviews: 4,390
Fiction: 3,600
Non-Fiction: 700
Total Pages Read: 1.5 million

CBR10’s 10 Most Read Books:

Between the Bridge and the River by Craig Ferguson (21 reviews)
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara (16 reviews)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (15 reviews)
Kindred by Octavia Butler (14 reviews)
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (12 reviews)
Attachments by Rainbow Rowell (10 reviews)
Circe by Madeline Miller (10 reviews)
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan (10 reviews)
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (10 reviews)
The Power by Naomi Alderman (10 reviews)

Getting books at the library.

CBR10’s 10 Most Read Authors:

Ilona Andrews (45 reviews)
Stephen King (41 reviews)
Seanan McGuire (39 reviews)
Agatha Christie (38 reviews)
Terry Pratchett (29 reviews)
Rainbow Rowell (27 reviews)
John Scalzi (23 reviews)
Craig Ferguson (22 reviews)
JK Rowling/Robert Galbraith (22 reviews)
Brandon Sanderson (21 reviews)
Brian K Vaughan (21 reviews)

Author Interactions and Social Media

In 2018, Cannonball Read heard from over 20 authors on our blog or via the #CBR10 hashtag including Richard Kadrey, Meagan Brothers, Catherynne Valente, Robin Talley, Cecilia Grant, and Emil Ferris. Check out #CBR11 for this year’s Cannonball Read Fan Mail.

CBR Volunteers

Not only does Cannonball Read have the most awesome reviewers, but a crew of talented and dedicated people have also stepped up to help out. The CBR10 Book Bingo Reading Challenge, #CannonBookClub, the Facebook page and CBR Book Chat Facebook Group, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram accounts, "Cannon Fodder" newsletter, would not be possible without our talented volunteers. Thanks to Ale, ardaigle, Beth Ellen, Bothari43, Captain Tuttle, emmalita, faintingviolet, ingres77, katie71483, kdm, Malin, Mrs. Julien, Mrs Smith, scootsa1000, teresaelectro, The Mama, and yesknopemaybe for their time. If you have a talent you’d like to offer to help Cannonball Read, sign up for CBR11 and contact me.

She read about people she could never be and adventures she would never have.

#CannonBookClub

We had three book club discussions last year: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle to coincide with the movie; Kindred by Octavia Butler, one of CBR’s most popular books ever; and Between the Bridge and the River by Craig Ferguson, one of eleven books that AlabamaPink reviewed in the first Cannonball Read in 2008.

Voting for this year’s selections will be announced in February by our book club maven, faintingviolet, but you can add Good Omens, The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett to your TBR list. We plan to discuss this book later in 2019 to coincide with the BBC miniseries.

Picard reading.

CBR10 Book Bingo Reading Challenge

As part of our anniversary year, we also held our first ever Book Bingo Reading Challenge. Coordinated by emmalita, this reading challenge had 38 players, 31 had at least one bingo and 9 people completely blacked out their bingo cards. Bingo resulted in 578 reviews over 4 months. 13 lucky Cannonballers won some pretty cool bookish prizes, and we plan to run another Bingo Reading Challenge for CBR11. Sign up for CBR11 and you can play too!

Donations and More Thanks

We also had a huge success with our fundraising efforts this past year. Giving Tuesday in November was a great success, and this year some fabulous donors helped us put together a book prize pack that janetfaust won. In 2018, Cannonball Read donated $1,625 to the American Cancer society, bringing our total donations to $4,625! Thanks to everyone who donated! You can support Cannonball Read with donations, visiting our amazon affiliate link, or donating your time.

Here are our final standings. CBR10 was the first year multiple people had more than 4 Cannonballs, and vel veeter and BlackRaven each had NINE CANNONBALLS!

Nonuple Cannonball (468+)

vel veeter 501
BlackRaven 491

Spongebob Reading.

Triple Cannonball (156+)

Jen K 192
prisco 186
narfna 175

Double Cannonball (104+)

lowercasesee 136
Caitlin_D 128
Malin 108

Deez books.

Whole Cannonball (52+) - 27 people

TheShitWizard 82
octothorp 74
Halbs 71
ASKReviews 70
dAvid 68
faintingviolet 64
Jake 64
Lisa Bee 63
kfishgirl 62
Sophia 60
CoffeeShopReader 56
Leedock 56
emmalita 54
Dome’Loki 53
ingres77 53
Aquillia 53
ElCicco 52
melanir 52
crystalclear 52
scootsa1000 52
bonnie 52
MrsLangdonAlger 52
KB 52
Ellesfena 52
thewheelbarrow 52
tillie 52
alwaysanswerb 52

Wizard dancing with books.

Half Cannonball (26+) - 13 people

Carriejay 47
ardaigle 47
yesknopemaybe 44
Jenny S 35
The Chancellor 32
LittlePlat 32
KimMiE" 31
kittenkong42 30
llp 27
Rachie3879 27
Mrs Smith Reads 26
Bothari43 26
Ale 26

Quarter Cannonball (13+ ) - 14 people

lumenatrix 23
Mikki Blu 22
xoxoxoe 22
J 22
Melina 21
NTE 20
teresaelectro 19
Shibuyama 15
Tia_I’m.Tia 13
alphabootoo 13
Petre18 13
Debcapsfan 13
Tracy 13
Tragic Sandwich 13

Library dancing.

And the 74 Cannonballers who wrote between one and twelve reviews, listed alphabetically

Alexis
allibaba77
Azamiko
baxlala
Bea Pants
Becky with the good flare
Belphebe
Bernard Black
Beth Ellen
Blingle Bells
buenogato
Cabinderada
Caitycat
CatOnMyHead
chatelaine
CimbrielShine
Claudia
DataAngel
denesteak
Dustin Rowles
elderberrywine
Ellepkay
FakePoppy
Fiat.Luxury
FyreHaar
gamgam
genericwhitegirl
getoffmylawnn
Giovanni’s Roomba
I am not the pithy one
janet snakehole
janetfaust
jkbuscher
Julia in Austin
Junebug
Kate
katie71483
kdm
kella
Kitkat
KM Bezner
LanierHgts
Lorelei
luelladeeville
mangotrailmix
missmarymack
MisterRobit
Mrs Dillemma
Mrs. Julien
NoNeinNyet
Nyx
PattyKates
pluiedenovembre
Polyesque
postcardsandbooks
Quorren
RaePercy
readingbooks
Rebecca Anne
SConn
sempernox
sistercoyote
slainte
slowseptember
soapyme
Tereasa
Thumper
TyburnBlossom
Vada Sultenfuss
Vern
WhimBimThankYouMim
WistfulCynic
Yifat Shaik
Zoë

Did you get a kick out of any of these gifs, or put some of these books on your TBR list? Think maybe you could review a Nonuple Cannonball (468+) books this year (or maybe a Quarter Cannonball at 13)? Then you’ll be happy to know that there’s still time to register for CBR11, and help Cannonball Read continue on our journey to stick it to cancer, one book at a time.

Doctor Who and books