Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Tasty bite of fantasy with fallen angels and shifters with a setting drawing from Vietnamese culture. Bingo #7!

Of Dragons, Feasts, and Murder by Aliette de Bodard

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CBR14 Bingo: “Elephant” – There’s a metaphorical elephant in the room, no one seems willing to discuss how the system of repressing people’s freedoms is causing the rot at the heart of the dragon empire. First of all, thank you, Emmalita, for bringing this to my attention.  You were right, I did enjoy it and it’s the perfect length for this stage of the bingo game!  Of Dragons, Feasts, and Murder is a novella set after the events of de Bodard’s “Dominion of the Fallen” […]

Arthurian Legend, Feminist Perspective

Half Sick of Shadows by Laura Sebastian

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It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of re-imagined classics: Achilles, Circe, the Trojan women — I love a take on a well known tale from a marginalized perspective. Of course, all of those that I mentioned are Greek myths, with which I have quite a bit of familiarity. On a recent trip to the bookstore I found Half Sick of Shadows, which really piqued my interest — the story of King Arthur and Camelot from the perspective of Elaine Astolat, Lady of […]

“There’s a Lid for Every Pot”

The Matchmaker's Gift by Lynda Cohen Loigman

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I have been a fan of Lynda Cohen Loigman’s books for several years. I was looking forward to The Matchmaker’s Gift and it did not disappoint. Loigman writes historical fiction centering around the Jewish immigrant community in New York City. Her books are well researched and she captures their experiences very well. The book is set in two time periods.  In 1994 Abby is a divorce attorney working for a very demanding boss. She is mourning her grandmother, Sara, who helped raise her and her […]

This Series Is Growing On Me

The Private Patient by P. D. James

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cbr14 series This is the second Adam Dalgleish mystery by James I’ve read now, and I do enjoy the set-up.  Essentially, it’s a closed box mystery, a la Agatha Christie, where you know that the perpetrator is one of a certain set of suspects, and the fun is figuring out who.  The Commander in charge, Dalgleish, has a couple of subordinates as his team, and they are called in only for high profile hush-hush cases.  Nothing happens overnight, for they are dealing with wealthy and […]

Bleak House

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

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Sometimes I can write a 1000 word post on a short story or even a poem, but taking a 1000 page novel and figuring out what to do with it is too big a task. This novel begins with one of the absolute best opening chapters in all of English literature. The slow, meandering walk down the street outside the chancery courts with the absolutely disgusting yellow fog creeping in as an extended metaphor for the inhuman corruption of the court systems. Then the description […]

Adjustment Team

The Collected Stories of Philip K Dick Volume 2: Adjustment Team by Philip K Dick

Second Variant by Philip K Dick

Jon's World by Philip K Dick

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This is the second collection of Philip K Dick’s stories and novellas. In the first collection (and these collections goes chronologically for the most part), it was mostly rough and early stories with a couple of real gems like “Paycheck” among others. What I tend to find really good about Philip K Dick novels is that he often has a good central conceit that drives the stories, but the story itself is often more weird and bizarre and off the wall than that. That’s why […]



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