Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Midnight Library

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

by Leave a Comment

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig is a story about the infinite possibilities of our own lives. We have all had the thought of “if only I had done this or that, my life would be completely different.” Inherent in that thought, but usually unstated, is “… and then I’d be happy.” What we rarely think about are the moments that if we’d done them differently, would lead us to more heartbreak. Or the things we cherish about our current lives that would be gone […]

The Scapegoat

The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier

by 2 Comments

This book did my head in, in a good way. The ending was astounding. And I loved how you have to wonder about certain characters/things that happened after the fact. Really well done by du Maurier. The only reason why I gave this 4 stars though is that parts of this book are so freaking slow. It feels at times things are moving underwater and then they pick up again. I get du Maurier is setting the stage so to speak though with John of […]

A quietly thrilling side-quel to The Glass Hotel in the key of Cloud Atlas

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

by 1 Comment

I would list the HBO Max adaptation of Station Eleven as one of the few adaptations better than the book it came from. I loved that mini-series and thought it both illuminated and improved the source material. I do not feel it is a slight to Emily St. John Mandel to say that, as she was heavily involved in the adaptation. Mandel is one of the most interesting authors working right now. She is enormously talented at world-building and tight, beautiful prose. However, her characters […]

Corona Days

Honor Thy Father by Gay Talese

Hit and Run by Lawrence Block

The Secret History of Twin Peaks by Mark Frost

by Leave a Comment

After two-plus years of successfully evading the coronavirus, it finally caught up to me last week. Fortunately, my symptoms were mild (vaccinated and boosted), the only one lingering was fatigue. That and family responsibilities left me little time to write reviews this past week. So I decided to put these three here instead of my monthly dump because they were all worthy of longer reviews, two good, one damn fine. Honor Thy Father **** One of the things that made The Sopranos such an excellent television […]

Cool premise, questionable tone

Midnight Riot / Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch

by 4 Comments

The “Rivers of London” series has been on my TBR for a long time. It’s billed as X-Files meets Harry Potter in London, and you might as well call it RaRa Catnip and be done. A work assignment relating to Mysteries in May finally gave me the push to read it – well, to listen to the audio on Libby. Peter Grant is a Probationary Constable, waiting for his long-term assignment after training. He’s hoping to be a detective with the Met, but the odds […]

Ramble On . . .

The Open Road by Jean Giono

by 4 Comments

The Open Road, written by the French author Jean Giono in 1950, is in many ways a classical “on the road” tale.  The main characters, friends of a sort, are the unnamed narrator and his traveling companion, “the artist”.  The setting is France, between northern Provence and the Alps, and the wandering is done either on foot, or the occasional borrowed truck.  The mountains and villages our two comrades wander through are not only timeless, but apparently unscathed by the war just having ended. The […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo