Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: ElCicco's Quick Questions interview.)

ElCicco's Reviews:

“…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 […]

Actions have consequences

Whirligig by Paul Fleischman

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My niece sent me this novel recently because she’d heard of it through her students and thought I might find it interesting both as a reading project and potential art project inspiration for my son. She was right on both counts! This is a short YA novel from 1998 about a young man who learns that “actions have consequences,” a message displayed on the book’s cover. While we have all heard that (or said it) at some time, usually as a warning against dangerous or […]

Where it started, how it’s going/Cannonball

Markings by Dag Hammarskjold

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My first review of CBR12 was Of Mice and Men, and I noted in the review that it was one of the most depressing books I have ever read. It feels like that book set the tone for 2020. By mid-March, reading for fun was … difficult. All the worries and fears surrounding COVID encroached on everything I read. Now that we have made it to the end of the year and there is a light at the end of the tunnel — a change […]



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