Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Edith Wharton (5-12)

The Lamp of Psyche by Edith Wharton

The Valley of Childish Things, and Other Emblems by Edith Wharton

The Journey by Edith Wharton

The Debt by Edith Wharton

The Moving Finger by Edith Wharton

Daunt Diana by Edith Wharton

The Eyes by Edith Wharton

Quicksand by Edith Wharton

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“The Lamp of Psyche” “Delia Corbett was too happy; her happiness frightened her.” The story begins with Mrs. Delia Corbett making a series of reflections on her happiness. She’s newly married now in her mid-thirties, having been previously married and widowed (more or less both unhappily). She also reflects that her first husband’s wanderlust (and lust) made her not want to be with him anymore and if she benefited from his death so be it. Her new marriage is just two months old and has […]

John Steinbeck (1)

Burning Bright by John Steinbeck

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“The canvas walls of the dressing tent were discolored with brown water spots, green grass stains and grey streaks of mildew, and the prickles of sun glittering came through.” This is a book I bought and almost immediately regretted because the more I looked at it and thought about it, the less I wanted to read it. It reminds me of a weird mix of the Christopher Isherwood/Aldous Huxley book “Jacob’s Hands” mixed with a Thornton Wilder play. It says it’s a play in stories. […]

Jasper Fforde (1)

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

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“My father had a face that could stop a clock.” Somewhere in the heart of every reader lies the desire to write a series of time-travelling mystery novels in which, among other things, famous books and certainly puns about books, play significant roles. It helps if you’re English like Jasper Fforde or Jodi Taylor, but you can be an Anglophiliac like Connie Stevens, or just you’re own thing like Tim Powers if need be.  This one in particular is quite famous and I think beloved, […]

George Bernard Shaw (1); Mary Shelley (2)

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

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I’m teaching Pygmalion alongside Frankenstein….I will let the kids review them for you. Personally I love it.   Pygmalion “I didn’t like the play that much as I found it not the easiest plot to follow and the ending was unsatisfying. I think the play did well in raising a question about language and it’s role/purpose. Something that didn’t is the ending as it is deeply inconclusive and unsatisfying.” “I think the play is interesting because there are multiple different characters from different backgrounds. there […]

Nothing she writes will be Life after Life for me

Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson

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I loved Life After Life – I think it’s still in my top books, and I’ll keep recommending it (go ahead, find it at your library and enjoy it!). But everything else I’ve read of Atkinson has not reached that level of enjoyment for me. I think it’s that (unfair?) comparison that makes this book a little tough to review for me. This book is fine! It’s generally interesting and the writing is mostly good (although there I have some quibbles). But it lacks that something […]

Romeo and Juliet, California Style

Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson

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There were two old school romances I adored as a teen.  One, reread not too long ago, was Lorna Doone.  And the other was, spoiler, Ramona.  As a SoCal girl, how could I not?  I was very familiar with the locations and history.  As a matter of fact, one of my sons got married at the Rancho Camulos, where the story begins.  It’s a historical site, but since it was owned by the same family until the mid-20th century, it’s a perfect hodge-podge of various […]



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