Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


“Women were to stay out of it. Whatever *it* was.”

My Inconvenient Duke by Loretta Chase

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The third in Chase’s Difficult Dukes series. This book is so quintessentially Chase that if you fed it to AI (and someone probably has), it could probably produce a roughly believable original story just based on this book. Plot: Lady Alice is the sister of the Duke of Ripley, which readers may recall from A Duke in Shining Armor. Ripley’s recklessness has now been tamed by an intelligent, headstrong woman, but this was not always the case. At one point, Alice felt that Ripley would […]

Men are naturally hot and dry and women are naturally cold and damp. Guess which is good?

The Once and Future Sex by Eleanor Janega

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Accessibly written history on how medieval society viewed women and how they viewed themselves. Spoiler alert – the “natural” woman is straight up the opposite of what society thinks is “natural” now. I’ve recently fallen down a Youtube rabbit hole on History Hit. I am finding it somewhat reassuring to learn about other times in history that have dealt with seemingly insurmountable issues that were, eventually, surmounted. So when I learned that one of their historians wrote the history of medieval women? Girl, I ran […]

“Peter tried to think of a remark less terrifying than ‘have you thought of selling your teeth?'”

Ne'er Duke Well by Alexandra Vashti

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Plot: Peter grew up in the southern US, having been abandoned by his conman of a father. By a fluke of circumstance, he has found himself with a Dukedom and two half-siblings presently being gently neglected by an elderly relative. Immediately, he knew he wanted to use his newfound power to advance the cause of emancipation and get custody of his brother and sister. The problem is that these two goals are in a bit of conflict, as one is viewed as radical, and the […]

“Captain Kirk would have thought of something by now, I’m sure, but I have no red-shirted confederates to feed to it.”

Walking to Aldebaran by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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Being an astronaut – it isn’t all tiny balls of ice cream and zero gravity bouncing. Plot: Gary has wanted to be an astronaut all his life. And not only did he become an astronaut, his first trip was to be part of a team investigating potential evidence of alien life. This is the stuff dreams are made of. Only that dream turned into a nightmare as they arrived and disaster starts taking them out. Gary is now alone, with no provision, and no sense […]

Getting caught up on unreviewed books from last year

The Hustler by Walter Tevis

Horseman, Pass By by Larry McMurtry

The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa

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My world fell apart last November with the election of Donald Trump, and I’m still trying to put the pieces back together. Nothing literal (lucky me). I’ve just spent the past few months detached from….everything outside of my personal bubble. I’m getting back to normal, though. No less angry – but better able to be a part of the world, I guess. Unfortunately, reading has been one of the things that has fallen by the wayside. I haven’t had the mental energy to read and […]

Careless? A Charming Understatement

Careless People: A cautionary Take of Power Greed and Lost Idealism? by Sarah Wynn-Williams

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Well, well, well, if it isn’t the worst people in the world. I don’t think I’ve been so infuriated since I read John Carreyrou’s ‘Bad Blood.’ I don’t believe there’s much left to redeem Silicon Valley at this point. Stick it all into the insinkerator and set the whole kitchen on fire for all I care. The funny thing is, I would probably have never heard of Careless People, let alone read it, if it weren’t for the suppression efforts. In a brilliant display of the […]



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