Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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About ElCicco

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Married, mom of two, history PhD, feminist. I've been participating in Cannonball Read since CBR4. I love to read, and writing reviews keeps me from reading without thinking. I feel like I owe it to the authors who entertain me to savor their creations. It's like slowing down and enjoying a delicious meal instead of bolting your food.

ElCicco's Reviews:

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I’ve got the music in me!

Soul Music: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett

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Soul Music is the third novel in Pratchett’s Discworld “Death” series, and as in the previous two novels, we see Death abruptly abandon his duties and behave, or try to behave anyway, as a human would in his attempt to deal with an unexpected problem. Unlike the previous novels though, Death this time has an able replacement — his granddaughter Susan. This does not mean, however, that there won’t be trouble, and in Soul Music, the trouble has to do with a young musician and […]

“…it’s a wonderful afterlife.”

Reaper Man: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett

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If we knew when we were going to die, people would lead better lives. IF PEOPLE KNEW WHEN THEY WERE GOING TO DIE, I THINK THEY PROBABLY WOULDN’T LIVE AT ALL. In which I continue with my reading of Terry Pratchett, focusing on the Death novels. Reaper Man is the second Death novel, i.e., a Discworld novel featuring Death as a main character. In Mort, Death took on an apprentice so that he could go off and try to experience human emotion for himself. In […]

Death takes a holiday

Mort: A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett

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After reading Hogfather and Good Omens for CBR10, (and thank you, Malin, for gifting them to me way back when) I meant to read more Pratchett. Those two books were enormously entertaining reads and Pratchett has written dozens of novels. The problem is knowing where to begin, since a number of the them form their own series within the Discworld. I consulted one of the many tables out there called “How to Read Pratchett” and opted to begin with the Death novels, the first of […]

It’s like “Oklahoma!” But for Texas

Simon the Fiddler: A Novel by Paulette Jiles

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In one of the many end-of-year best books lists that came out in December, I saw this novel mentioned. The reviewer said that it was set at the end of the Civil War and its immediate aftermath in Texas and featured an itinerant fiddler and an Irish servant who fall in love but are separated. I do enjoy historical fiction and this is a time period about which I know very little, so it seemed like an entertaining way to get a sense of the […]

A novel of grief

Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague by Maggie O’Farrell

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This could very well end up as one of my favorites for 2021. O’Farrell’s novel imagines the death of William Shakespeare’s young son Hamnet and the grief the envelops the family as a result. I could not put this book down, it is so beautifully written and heart wrenching. While Shakespeare is a character in the novel (never named but obviously him), the main character is Agnes, his wife and mother to Hamnet, Hamnet’s twin Judith and Susannah. It is mainly through her eyes that […]



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