Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Reminded Me of Under the Dome…Not a Good Reference Point

Sleeping Beauties by Owen King

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I don’t know what to say here besides this new Stephen/Owen King mash-up was disappointing. I read “Under the Dome” eons ago and I really wish that my Amazon review had been pushed to Goodreads. I recall that I was flabbergasted that no one had reigned in King since that book was 1,074 freaking pages. I read that over two days back in 2009 when I was traveling to Afghanistan for work and recall that at one point I was awake for two days just […]

Not Enough Development of Main Character and Ending Was Disappointing

The Little Shop of Found Things by Paula Brackston

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Not too much to say here except that I have been reading Paula Brackston for years now and she’s either a hit or a miss I have found. This one just doesn’t rise up there to the other books of hers that I have read and loved (The Witch’s Daughter, The Silver Witch, and The Witches of the Blue Well). She chooses to do contemporary in this one, however, with the time travel aspect it definitely appears that Brackston was more focused on the historical […]

G.O.(A).T

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

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I decided to revisit the GRRM classic after the show ended. I’ve been in a prolonged reading slump due in part to stuff going on in my private life and it’s been difficult to focus on anything new. My personal library is littered with books I lost interest in 10%, 30% and one 50%. Familiarity always helps me break out of slumps and I figured that would be the case here.    I was not disappointed. The book isn’t just as great as I remember…it’s […]

DOOOGS IN SPACE! (OK actually in 1925 & 1850 America)

Time Dogs: Balto and the Race Against Time by Helen Moss

Time Dogs: Seaman and the Great Northern Adventure by Helen Moss

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If the Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne, the Ranger in Time series by Kate Messner and Paw Patrol got together and created a younger version of themselves with dogs and a time traveling van, you would get The Time Dogs series. The first two Time Dogs by Helen Moss are a sweet mix of fact and fiction. Clever stories bring to life the history of famous dogs and their people. The first book, Balto and the Race Against Time has our doggie […]

Take another little piece of my soul now baby

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

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“And then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life.” Damn, Joanne, how badly did you want to be done writing these? That line can’t NOT be metafiction. All kidding aside, there’s some of Rowling’s best writing in this, and I missed it the first time around in my haste to see how it all played out, and my frustration (less warranted on second read through) about stranding our heroes in the woods for too […]

It is only natural, of course, that each man should think his own opinions best: the crow loves his fledgling, and the ape his cub.

Utopia by Thomas More

Sonnets by William Shakespeare

Heloise and Abelard by Peter Abelard and Heloise

Fairy Tales by Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm

Fairy Tales by Charles Perrault

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Utopia – 3/5 Stars Have you read Utopia? I hadn’t before this. I decided to read it because it’s one of those books that has always been in the periphery of my life and life’s reading because of how much I’ve read dystopian literature. But I avoided it. It reads a lot like Plato’s Republic and makes references to it, and it’s presented like a would be travelogue. Sort of like later books like Thoma Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia or Jan Morris’s […]



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