Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Gift and Read

Unicorn Christmas by Diana Murray

We’re Off to Find a Fairy by Corey Reid

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Christmas is around the corner, and some people like to give books for the day.  I have two books that might work as gifts. Now it might not get to you before Christmas if your store does not have it in stock, but you can put it on your list for next year. What am I talking about? Unicorn Christmas by Diana Murray, that’s what! Okay, so I was not completely thrilled with the text (it was a tad younger than I usually like) but […]

The Man Without Qualities

The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil

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“Was he a strong person? He didn’t know.” This novel is ostensibly 1750 pages long, at least if you go by the basic page count. But don’t worry! It’s actually only 1200 pages, plus another 500 pages of partial and abandoned material, so it’s not that bad! The novel is great, but exhausting as you can imagine. The biggest exhausting element about it is that it’s not remotely cohesive or consistent. There’s numerous narrative threads and there’s sections of cohesion, but for the most part […]

End of Year 1

The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck

Hamlet's Enemey by Theodore Lidz

Killing Floor by Lee Child

The Client by John Grisham

God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens

The Uplift War by David Brin

Monkey by Wu Cheng'en

Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard

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The Winter of Our Discontent – 4/5 This is John Steinbeck’s last novel and it begins with our narrator, Ethan Allen Hawley, trying to reckon with what it’s like to have once had money and then not to. He’s a veteran who came home to find his father had squandered the family fortune to make a risky investment (war profiteering) that didn’t pan out. So now a while on, married with two kids, Ethan works out a grocery store for an Italian ex-pat. He’s offered […]

Local Booksellers Know Best (Part One)

These Hollow Vows by Lexi Ryan

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A few months ago I started asking the teams at my two nearest bookstores, “what’s the best thing you’ve read this month?”  I have come home with a variety of genres (only one of which I’ve never really been into), and a 100% strike rate. These Hollow Vows is the first book in a YA fantasy series by Lexi Ryan, who I was quite sure rang a bell when the bookseller mentioned her (as it turns out, I’ve read about 8 of her adult romances).  […]

I could not see any reason to finish this book

The Liars by Petronella McGovern

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I’ll cut right to the chase.  I abandoned this book on page 176, because the dog went missing, presumed dead-as-message to the protagonist.  This book has the honour of being the first book all year that I didn’t finish. I read a lot; I watch a lot of tv.  I do not require a happy ending.  I don’t need the author to coddle me or run an Entourage-style universe where there are no stakes and everything always works out in the end.  However, you’d better […]

Thank you, Liz!!!

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Liz (tiny_bookbot), thank you so very much! These arrived a few days ago, and it’s taken me a minute to post because I got lost in reading right away. These wonderful books are both right up my alley, and I appreciate your thoughtfulness. Happy holidays to Liz, and to all you other ‘ballers!



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