Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


About elderberrywine

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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:

Such a Lovely Series

Coot Club by Arthur Ransome

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It’s always such a pleasure to settle down with one of the books in this series.  There will be some adventurous and imaginative scheme afoot, but always within the time frame of school holidays.  The children will each use their particular skills, and always get along wonderfully.  And for the most part, the adults will stay out of the way.  And of course, it will all wrap up very nicely but never quite as it was planned at the beginning.  The settings are accurate to […]

Antelope Like Phantoms in the Snow

The Crossing by Corman McCarthy

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Fair warning here – about half the dialogue is in Spanish.  But with just my many decades old Spanish classes from the dim past, it really wasn’t that hard to follow.  It’s pretty simple, and most of it you can get from context.  But.  So you know.  This is the second book from McCarthy’s Border Trilogy, after All the Pretty Horses.  There is no connection between any of the characters, but the milieu is definitely the same. Billy and Boyd Parham are two brothers, sons […]

Hello Perry ! It’s Been a Minute.

The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom by rle Stanley Gardner

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Back to the curious mid-century rules of divorce, especially in a community property state like California.  No-fault divorce did not yet exist, so if either party wanted to get out of the deal fast, they had to file in the state of Nevada, and even then there were certain rules regarding residency.  Which explains the dude ranches that proliferated in the vicinity of Reno and Las Vegas, where they usually hung out for the necessary month or so.  The other alternative was the quickie Mexican […]

So Good

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

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This is a searing look at Depression/Dust Bowl/Migrant farmer camps in California, as previously depicted in Steinbeck’s famous Grapes of Wrath, but from the point of view of a woman.  Almost as if the famous portrait by Dorothea Lange come to life. Elsa Wolcott, raised in a prosperous Texas family in 1921, is a so-called old maid and is rejected by her family for her ungainly height and plain looks.  One night, though, she takes a chance on Rafe Martinelli, the handsome young son of […]

No wonder Haiti has some many issues.

Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

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A sprawling tale of the complex and extremely bloody history of the melting pot that was early 17th century Haiti.  It’s a seething brew of the indigenous people of Haiti, slaves brought from Africa to work the sugar plantations, and the various European settlers from Spain, England, and especially France.  And although Haiti was a colony of France at the time, the French were not at all a cohesive group – there were at least three groups of French since this is the period of […]

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.  […]



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