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:

The Childhood We All Wish We Had

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

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I have heard this book, the first of a series, referred to in discussions of classical British children’s lit for years, but had never read it.  I assumed it would be something along the lines of Enid Blyton’s Five series, which I adored as a child, but was surprised to find it predates that by a good fifteen years, written in 1930.  Well, I may be a little late to the party, but I am absolutely ready to dive in. The protagonists are four siblings, […]

Much Tragic. So Drama.

The Distracted Preacher and Other Tales by Thomas Hardy

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Must confess.  In my late teens, I went on a Thomas Hardy binge.  British lit wasn’t new to me, but something about Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Far From the Madding Crowd just hit my tragic drama queen teen heart.  Read everyone I could get my hands on, and in those days, there was a fair bit to be found, in school libraries and even public ones.  Inevitably the protagonist (and it was usually a heroine) came to a sad end, and I was there […]

Flamingos of Long Island Run Wild? Hmmm.

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

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Alright, this was some seriously creepy stuff, and I’m always in for a catastrophe that isn’t quite clearly explained.  Like you are only getting bits and pieces and nobody is ever going to actually lay it out for you.  Draw your own conclusions.  But that being said, I did have one caveat regarding it all.  But more about that later. Amanda and Clay, along with their two adolescent children, are renting a vacation home for a few weeks in a thickly wooded area of Long […]

Looking to the Mountains

Woman Running in the Mountains by Yuko Tsushima

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CBR15 Passport Japan Takiko, a young unwed mother, has these dreams.  She is running “faster, faster.. . . When she has run until her body is empty, she stops abruptly and lets her gaze return again to the distant, delicately sparkling world below.  Rivers trace silver lines.  The sea is in sight.  . . . drifting ice appears and expands into a world of white.” But that is very far from her actual life.  She has a father who is physically abusive when drunk (most […]

Lazy Hazy Days

A Nest of Gentlefolk and Other Stories by Ivan Turgenev

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CBR15 Passport Russia There is something about the, dare I say, second tier Russian classical authors, such as Turgenev and Gogol, that I find almost mesmerizing.  The primary characters are the gentlefolk mentioned in the title – rich enough to have inherited some sort of estate (complete with serfs and house servants, needless to say), but no wealthier than that.  The men rarely have any profession, other than the occasional doctor, and spend most of their days hunting, fishing, and visiting their neighbors.  The women […]

And the Ocean Breeze in Her Hair

The Voyage of the Morning Light by Marina Endicott

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CBR15Passport South Seas Kay and Thea, her newly married and much older half-sister, set off one morning in 1911 aboard the sailing ship, The Morning Light.  The ship is a trading vessel bound for the South Seas, and captained by Thea’s new husband, Frances.  Never having been to sea before, Kay does not realize, at first, that she has found the place in which she is most at home, in all the world.  Thirteen years old, and gleefully barefoot, she is a born sailor, and […]



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