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 wonkier version of “Hamilton”

Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America by Jack Rakove

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A very different account of the putting together of the American system of government.  This is the sort of stuff your high school American History (if you had such a class) textbook glossed over, and it’s fascinating to see, in such detail, how it all came together.  Oh sure, there’s some mention of Washington the general, and the various battles, and the multitude of issues the British Empire was facing at the same time, but that’s not where the heart of this book lies. I […]

Witchy Woman

Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

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This is a prequel to the better known Practical Magic, which I have not yet read.  I am knocking a star off the rating, because it has that slight awkwardness of having to back into a previous opening, by their very nature, an issue with prequels.  The prequel trilogy of Star Wars is a classic example.  But it did make me want to read the original, so mission accomplished, I guess. Magic Lessons covers three generations of a family of witches and their allies.  Their […]

Going on vacation? Looking for a great read that won’t run out anytime soon? Gotcha covered.

Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore

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Written by a contemporary of Dickens, and a favorite of mine since I was a teen.  Ah, so romantic, and sometimes disarmingly funny too.  So let me set it up for you.  Set in Exmoor during the mid-1600s, young local wrestling champion John Ridd is Gaston, except make him responsible, kind, and with a rather snarky sense of humor, running the family’s large landholding, and caring for his widowed mother and two younger sisters.  Man has his hands full. In an isolated valley, not far […]

Really, LA County Library, I’m still reeeeeeeading it!

Lush Life by Richard Price

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OK, not so sure why this one hit me the way it did.  But I always really, really try to finish any book I start.  And the LA County library system has, about a year ago, stopped charging overdue fees.  So I got a few “Hey, book is due!  Just saying!” e-mails.  (Bear in mind you automatically get 3 3-week check-outs, so 9 weeks.)  But yesterday, I actually got a message that said, “Hey, if you lost it, just fess up and pay for the […]

Ramble On . . .

The Open Road by Jean Giono

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The Open Road, written by the French author Jean Giono in 1950, is in many ways a classical “on the road” tale.  The main characters, friends of a sort, are the unnamed narrator and his traveling companion, “the artist”.  The setting is France, between northern Provence and the Alps, and the wandering is done either on foot, or the occasional borrowed truck.  The mountains and villages our two comrades wander through are not only timeless, but apparently unscathed by the war just having ended. The […]

As It Says on the Tin . . .

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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OK, let’s start off with Rebecca, but then go off on The Yellow Wallpaper and now cross it with Lovecraft/Eldritch horror (sans tentacles, fortunately).  Sound like fun? Yes, it was, and especially because of the heroine.  Very much mid-century modern, wealthy Mexican socialite Noemi Taboada has grown quite bored with her social scene.  A budding interest in anthropology aside, her life seems to be one party after another, one fatuous twit after another. So when her father receives a plea for help from her cousin […]



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