The Cannonball Read Book Bingo Reading Challenge is a beloved annual tradition. You can get the complete information on this year's Bingo here. This year I'd like to help with your bingo board by providing assistance in finding books to meet a particular bingo circle. Where better to begin than with … [Read more]
An Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
An Uncommon Reader is a little hard to classify -- I guess it's alternate history? -- but the premise is essentially that Elizabeth II happens upon a bookmobile, starts reading a lot, and Is Changed. This is a book for book lovers, and specifically, for deepish Anglo-biased "classic" catalog … [Read more]
The Left Handed Dictionary by Leonard Louis Levinson
Thursday July 30 is "Paperback Book Day," celebrating the first books published in paperback by Penguin Publishing Co. back in 1835. Many years ago (but not as far back as that) when I was in 8th grade, I received this gem of a paperback from the assistant principal of my middle school. The Left … [Read more]
Ironwood by Michael Connelly
I don't know what to say about this one outside it wasn't that great. It's just a ho-hum novel/3 stars and honestly it's because of a lot of things that I will go into below that showed why this would be a solid three stars. I hoped that Connelly would shake off whatever is going on in his Ballard … [Read more]
Hooked: A Novel of Obsession by Asako Yuzuki
Cbr18bingo Friends I reviewed Asako Yuzuki’s novel Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder a few months ago and was very much struck by her portrayal of Japanese society — the sexism, the fat shaming, the anti-feminist sentiment — as well as by her riveting story-telling and characters. Hooked: A … [Read more]
11/22/63 by Stephen King
CBR18 BINGO: Repair, because the main character goes back in time to try to repair the damage caused by JFK's assassination I had a high-school English teacher who mused that she didn't think Stephen King would ever be counted among the "classics" because the sheer volume of his output inevitably … [Read more]
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
CBR Bingo: One, for Austen's first book! Whilst watching the superlatively wonderful Emma Thompson/Ang Lee Sense and Sensibility on a very successful (if I say so myself) Book Group On Tour weekend in Bristol, it occured to me that I'd never read the actual novel on which it was based. Looking to … [Read more]
