Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Libraries are amazing

The Girl in his Shadow by Audrey Blake

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What a fantastic example of how libraries are amazing, and how nostalgic I am for those halcyon days when I’d go with my parents (or at school) and get recommendations and check out 15 books at once to see what I enjoy. As an American who’s lived in privileged communities with substantive funding, I never knew what I had vis-à-vis public libraries until I moved overseas and was able to compare. I say all this because this book was the “book club read” for my […]

Dragon’s Breath

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

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Axl and Beatrice, two elderly Britons, are living out their days in a post-Arthurian England when they become obsessed with the idea of taking a trip to visit their long-departed son in his village. They embark on an arduous journey in which they encounter knights, warriors, monks, ogres, and even a dragon. Their trip is hampered by the fact that the whole country seems to be under a sort of spell. No one has much of a memory anymore. Axl and Beatrice don’t remember what […]

“You’re going to make me love you, aren’t you?” “I’m sure going to try.”

Scandalized by Ivy Owens

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CBR14 Bingo: “Scandal” A few weeks back, Mysterious Galaxy featured Scandalized on their Instagram with rave reviews.  I needed a book for the ‘Scandal’ square and decided to pre-order it.  When I picked it up, the booksellers commented that four of the staff had finished it with in 24-48 hours.  I brought it home around noon on Thursday.  It is now Saturday afternoon (as of the start of writing this review) and I’ve read it twice.  The MG staff and myself aren’t the only ones swooning over […]

Round up 1

Sword of the Lictor by Gene Wolfe

A Window into Time by Peter F Hamilton

The 10th Victim by Robert Sheckley

The White Cottage Mystery by Margery Allingham

Gwendy's Button Box by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

Keep Moving by Maggie Smith

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

The Nonexistent Knight by Italo Calvino

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The Sword of the Lictor – 4/5 I might be getting a little series fatigue on these books. It doesn’t help the matter that this is the second time I am reading these books. I am doing that because while I have read them before I am trying reconcile my feelings of them with the rave reviews I read online. The thing I most like about the books is that the world they inhabit feels very strongly like the kind of world I would love […]

Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Macbeth: An A+ Audio Study Guide by Markl Breitenberg

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Macbeth – 5/5 I am teaching this play to several of my classes this year, so when we re-read it I will also let the students review it as well. The play is great for use in class because it’s weird, it’s wild, it’s bloody, and it’s relatively opaque in some of its implications. Shakespeare was on potential shaky ground writing this one because it was right after the coronation of James I and since he was the Scottish king, having two different Scottish kings […]

Why is this Man Mad?

Understudy for Death by Charles Willeford

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Read as part of CBR14Bingo: font. The book is told from the perspective of a journalist. Several times throughout the novel, the font of the novel will change when an article that the journalist or someone else writes is inserted in the story.  It’s going to be tough to squeeze 250 words out of here but I’ll try. I was planning on dumping this with my end-of-the-month reads but it checked the “font” box off CBR Bingo so… Charles Willeford loves writing about domesticity. And while he’s […]



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