Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

About esmemoria

CBR12 participant
CBR13 participant
CBR14 Participant
CBR14 Bingo Badges
CBR16 Participant
CBR17 Participant
CBR18 Participant
CBR18 Levels

In my walking around life, I miss my old, blind pug (the Ancient Mariner), help amazing college students become teachers, and tie an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: esmemoria's Quick Questions interview.)

esmemoria's Reviews:

A Sweet Escape

The Austen Playbook by Lucy Parker

by 1 Comment

The Austen Playbook by Lucy Carter is the first romance I’ve picked up in ages. Years ago I was an avid Harlequin reader, a fact of which my friends made gentle fun. But I loved them. They were pure escapism, plus by that time they had transitioned from implication to full on doing it. Yay sex! My romances need to be physical as well as emotional. And luckily today’s romances fit the bill. I wouldn’t have picked up a romance without the enthusiastic reviews of my […]

An Anthology of Errors

Daggers Drawn by Edited by Maxim Jakubowski

by Leave a Comment

Bingo – Reader’s Choice (replacing Sports Ball) My brother sometimes calls me Crankelina. In the privacy of my accepting family, I am known to occasionally exhibit pouty annoyance. And so it was with Daggers Drawn, a mystery anthology edited by Max Jakubowski. Some stories are riddled with typos. The mysteries are flaccid. Many characters are poorly sketched. I am a bit sorry I wasted my Reader’s Choice square on this unnotable collection. I could end the review there, I suppose, but I have a word […]

From Cranky to Charming

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

by 2 Comments

CBR Bingo – Rec’d I picked up Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove after reading Leedock’s review and witcherwill’s suggestion in the comments. It took me awhile to warm up to the book and its main character. Ove is a widower who lives alone and has a metric ton of quirky habits. He is precise to the extreme. Everything has to be just so. He likes his lines clean and exact. He is excellent at building and repairing things. He gets infuriated by his neighbors ignoring […]

Brat Packer Writes Charming Story About Mice

She Was Nice to Mice by Ally Sheedy

by Leave a Comment

CBR Bingo – Fauna When she was 12 years old, 80s movie star Ally Sheedy wrote the book She Was Nice to Mice about Queen Elizabeth I and a genteel mouse living in her palace. One of the best things about the book is the drawings, which were done by another young woman named Jessica Ann Levy. The cover shown here features Elizabeth and a small mouse dressed in exquisite Elizabethan garb. Adorbs! The story depicts Queen Elizabeth as a fiery, temperamental ruler who loves […]

This White Whale Almost Did Me In

The Plague by Albert Camus

by Leave a Comment

CBR Bingo – White Whale The truth is that nothing is less sensational than pestilence. – The Plague My reading froze up completely as I tried to read Camus’ The Plague. I think I’ve been trying to get through this book for a month. It’s not because it isn’t good (it’s really good) or too slow (a bit slow in places, but so worth it) or triggering me (nice time to read about a plague). It’s….I don’t know why. For weeks I just stopped reading […]

A Totally Biased Review

Giving Back by Edward A. Joseph

by 6 Comments

CBR Bingo: Home. In which I return home and find my father. Giving Back was written by my father, Edward Joseph. It’s a series of essays that he’s written and published over the years about family, memories, moments of human connection and advice for living. It’s a great book and I’m so proud of him. The way my father came into writing is intricately tied to my own story. I had been living in San Francisco but returned to my home city in New York […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo