Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

About elderberrywine

CBR10 participant
CBR11 participant
CBR12 participant
CBR13 participant
CBR14 Participant
CBR14 Bingo Badges
CBR15 Participant
CBR16 Participant
CBR17 Participant
CBR18 Participant
CBR18 Levels

Elder LOTR/Holmes fan girl/writer since forever. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: elderberrywine's Quick Questions interview.)

elderberrywine's Reviews:

So Remember This for Spooky Season Next Year.

Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories by Algernon Blackwood

by Leave a Comment

Read this collection during the Spooky Season, a couple of months back, and it was perfect. One of the stories, Ancient Sorceries, has been included in many an anthology, and I read it for the first time at about the age of 12.  As a life-long cat owner, I heartily approve.  The fact that Egyptians considered them deity-adjacent is not at all surprising.  But two of the other stories intrigued me greatly.  In both cases, there was no being that was the antagonist, but rather […]

An Engrossing Read

High Towers by Thomas B. Costain

by Leave a Comment

Can’t find the cover – it’s a red hardcover Doubleday dated 1949 cbr18bingo Wealth I was such a Costain fan in my teenage years, since Palm Springs summers are long and hot and we only got to the library once a week.  And if you are speedy reader, you want a book that you can sink your teeth into, and Costain delivered.  Locations varied, time lines varied, but it was always a good meaty situation with plenty of believable characters.  And even now, once again, […]

OK, Cole, Don’t Tease Me with a Fine Map Like That

Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East by Juan Cole

by Leave a Comment

cbr18bingo Maps     cbr18bingo – Maps I know far more about Napoleon’s later career than his earlier one, so this was pretty much all news to me.  Seems that after his initial successes in various battles in the Italian states, the French government decided that he was just the man to tackle a challenge that they had had their eye on for some time, obtaining access to India via the east end of the Mediterranean.  Some sort of short cut through Egypt seemed just […]

Voted “The Most Beautiful Baby in Hong Kong” in 1947 – and He Was!

Vagabond: A Memoir by Tim Curry

by 2 Comments

cbr18bingo Card – Clown (Because, c’mon, Pennywise!) There are two Muppet movies that will always make me squee, because of their human costars.  The first is Christmas Carol with Michael Caine, and the second is Treasure Island with Tim Curry.  (An astute critic remarked that the first one works because Caine never treats his costars as anything other than human, while the second succeeds because Curry is a Muppet).  If there is a comic villain needed, Curry is your man.  What I had no idea […]

Bits and Pieces Crumbling as I Read

The City of Dreadful Night by Rudyard Kipling

by Leave a Comment

    cbr18bingo Card repair – because this book is totally beyond that Well this was definitely something different – in more ways than one. I’ve never had a book that actually crumbled in my hands as I read it. I picked it up at a library sale, because it was going for a dollar, and it was Kipling (fond memories of The Jungle Book and Kim) so how could I go wrong? Turns out it was one of his first published books, in 1885, […]

The Aftermath of One World War Still Lingers, But the Next Is Coming Right Along

The Mapping of Love and Death by Jacqueline Winspear

by Leave a Comment

cbr18bingo Card – Middle (as per title) Oh, dear, have gotten behind in my reviewing (definitely not in reading) of my pet Maisie Dobbs series. It’s 1932 and Billy, her invaluable assistant, has a wife on fragile ground, and meanwhile, her beloved mentor Dr. Maurice isn’t doing too well either.  In the midst of all this, she gets a new case that she can’t refuse.  A wealthy couple has just come back from France, where the remains of their son have been uncovered on the […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo