Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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

elderberrywine's Reviews:

Sailing, Sailing *hums*

Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

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And I thought the sailing jargon of the Swallows and Amazons series was mysterious.  But that was just messing around in boats, to quote Ratty, and this rises to a whole other level of importance, as well as impenetrableness.  Fortunately, one of the two main characters, Stephen Maturin, ship’s sturgeon, is absolutely a noobie.  That helps us some as much needs to be explained to him, but at least he is there on board to get the visual version. This period, about 1800, is that […]

French Colonial India You Say?

Small Days and Nights by Tishani Doshi

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Did you know France had established colonies in India?  I had no idea.  Not terribly big ones, mind you, mostly four totally unconnected coastal cities.  The first was established in 1674, with the rest coming along in the 1700s.  Today, they form the Union Territory of Puducherry (AKA Pondicherry).  I looked this up because of the European vibe I was getting from this tale. Grace was born in Pondicherry to an Italian academic and his wife, daughter of one of the established local landowning families.  […]

Towns that Never Were. Mountain Ranges That Were Nonexistent. And then an IKEA That Apparently Exists in a Land That Never Was. Good Times!

This Way Up: When Maps Go Wrong (and why it matters) by Mark Cooper-Jones and Jay Foreman

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We are all familiar with the wonderful maze of a store that is IKEA, no?  Cunningly contrived to let yourself get lost for a day of perusing mysteriously named Swedish household wonderfulness (and don’t forget the meatballs!) while astutely offering you childcare if you should need it.  Our sons happily would play with cars on their street floor mats, and a good time was had by all.  And until fairly recently (2019), one of the items on offer was the Björksta, a large classy map […]

What Does A Lonely Heiress Gotta Do to Get a Little Love Around This Joint?

The Case of the Lonely Heiress by Erle Stanley Gardner

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So let’s all shed a tear for the wealthy heiress who nevertheless is just so goldarned lonely that she has to post an ad in <i>Lonely Heats Are Calling</i>, publisher Robert Caddo, for companionship.  The magazine, of course, is in some ways a scam, but the letters they publish are real.  Since Caddo himself is wishing to hire Mason, we have a chance to find out how the racket works.  The self-published magazine is readably available around town for a nominal cost – no subscribers.  […]

To the Pole, Me Hearties! But We Gotta Be Back Before the End of Winter Break

Winter Holiday by Arthur Ransome

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So what’s in order is another feel-good installment in this series in which parents leave their adolescent offspring more or less unattended for a period of time allowing them to spend their school holidays faffing around on boats.  But, plot twist, this time it is winter!  The original six, the Swallows and Amazons, are once again joined by the D and D from the previous volume (alas, they do not have a team name yet, since they do not have a boat). So all the […]

Time to Buckle Up and Learn Some Stuff!

Julian by Gore Vidal

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This is the biography of Julian the Apostate, Emperor of Rome from 361 – 365 AD.  And if you, like myself, were confusing apostate with apostle, we were both very wrong, since an apostate is someone who renounces a religion.  Once I finally looked up the definition, matters became much clearer. Anyway, Julian, who was never expected to lead anyone, was the second nephew of Emperor Constantine the Great, who ruled the Roman Empire from Constantinople rather than Rome.  First nephew, or Julian’s older brother, […]



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