Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Surprisingly, I liked it!

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

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This book had been sitting on my TBR pile for years and I finally got to it this year. Not only do I get the satisfaction of finally finishing it, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that that I quite enjoyed it. Our first person narrator Susie Salmon is a 14 year old girl living with her family in small town Pennsylvania in the early 1970s. When the story starts, Susie is telling her story from beyond the grave (her ‘heaven’), sharing the story […]

If you thought Dan Brown was bad…

The Witch of Babylon by DJ McIntosh

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The back cover blurb for this book positions it as a sort of ‘DaVinci’s Code set in ancient Mesopotamia!’: mysterious and powerful ancient artifacts, a deadly conspiracy to keep these artifacts secreted, and an antiques dealer protagonist who is out to solve the mystery. John Madison is the antiques dealer protagonist, and his adventure into ancient Iraq begins when his older half brother, Samuel, an archeologist, is killed in a mysterious accident. Unbeknownst to John, his brother has sold their joint New York City apartment […]

When the Past Helps You Solve Your Present Problems

Raising the Horseman by Serena Valentino

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Raising the Horseman by Serena Valentino My rating: 3 of 5 stars A cross between a retelling and a sequel of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving, “Raising the Horseman” seems to not know what it wants to be. On one hand we have the standard story of Sleepy Hollow as told to us through the OG Katrina Van Tassel and her diaries which flesh out the plot and the characters. But then we also have the modern day Kat Van Tassel and […]

Art History + Literary History + Paris= This Book

Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know by Samira Ahmed

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Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know by Samira Ahmed My rating: 4 of 5 stars Combining the worlds of art and literary history, this is the story of Khayyam who’s trying to find a connection between the rumored painting that Delacroix gave to Dumas and to use this research to help her get into Chicago’s Art Institute Young Scholars program.Whether you know who Delacroix or Dumas are, this is a fun read that takes you into paintings, poetry, letters, and the streets of Paris. During […]

Surface Level

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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Carrie Soto retires from professional tennis at age 32 as the winningest player in the history of the Women’s Tour. However, five years later she watches in horror as her mark of 20 Grand Slams is tied by the younger star, Nicki Chan. Unwilling to let go of her most cherished accomplishment, Soto decides to come out of retirement alongside her father/coach Javier and take another crack at extending her record before Chan can surpass it. In Soto, Taylor Jenkins Reid has rendered an unusual […]

Ghosts of Every Flavor

Chill Tidings: Dark Tales of the Christmas Season by ed. Tanya Kirk

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So this is probably very American of me, but I did not realize, Dickens Christmas Carol notwithstanding, that ghost stories are apparently a British Christmas tradition.  Hereabouts, Halloween is the spooky season.  But here we have a collection of late 19th and early 20th century ghostly tales culled from the British Library. By and large this is a fairly amiable collection of ghosts.  They have Reasons to visit the living, mostly along the lines of unfinished business, but aren’t actively looking to harm anyone.  Belief […]



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