Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Overall good but appreciated the stories by characters that aren’t Harry Dresden in particular.

Brief Cases by Jim Butcher

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Last year I listened to the first Dresden Files short story collection, Side Jobs, to be able to listen to the excellent narration by James Marsters (on the recommendation of ardaigle!).  Marsters is a great narrator but he fell short when it came time for Karrin Murphy’s story at the end of the book.  For the next collection of short stories, Brief Cases, they brought on two female narrators, Cassandra Campbell and Julia Whelan for stories from Anastasia Luccio and Molly Carpenter’s POV.  No disrespect to […]

Digging Deep

The Night Shift by Alex Finlay

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New Jersey, New Year’s Eve 1999. A skeleton crew – four high school girls and their only slightly older manager – work the graveyard shift at a Blockbuster’s. The girls gossip and skirt their duty. Their manager – kindly, wearily and ineffectively – tries to get them to do their jobs, but the girl’s aren’t having it. Hours later they are all found dead. Only the youngest of them, Ella Monroe, survives. A suspect is quickly found but he flees before anyone can catch him.  […]

“It was odd. As a girl, Sophie would have shriveled with embarrassment at the way she was behaving. As an old woman, she did not mind what she did or said. She found that a great relief.”

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

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Years and years ago, I watched the Studio Ghibli production of Howl’s Moving Castle, and enjoyed it, as I enjoy most of their films. But I never read the book, and it wasn’t really on my radar, until I was scrolling endlessly through Libby looking for a new audio book. As luck would have it, I was in the mood for something light, and Howl’s Moving Castle definitely fit that bill. Though the book is named for the enigmatic Wizard Howl and his castle that […]

“May your Paths be safe, your Floors unbroken and may the House fill your eyes with Beauty.”

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

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In one word: Strange Y’all. I am straight-up mad at Susanna Clarke. HOW DARE SHE BE SO TALENTED AND CLEVER. I was delighted and amazed by her hefty debut novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and picked this one up on the recommendation of many people. It’s a slim and unassuming-looking book but she packs more creativity and strangeness into it than should be possible in so few pages. It might be the weirdest book I’ve ever read, giving Danielewski’s “House of Leaves” some stiff […]

In the Lake of the Woods

In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien

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This is a reread from about 20 years ago for me. I first read this in college after reading The Things they Carried for the first time and going on a bit of a Tim O’Brien binge. What’s interesting to me now about that binge is that there’s probably three Tim O’Brien you can read and understand as a young person, but then the rest you probably need a few decades to reflect on. As much as I liked this book when I read it […]

Minor Miracle: Unlocked

Sweethearts and Savages: Eden Academy Book Two by Grace McGinty

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I just finished Sweethearts and Savages, the second book in Grace McGinty’s Eden Academy series. I really want to talk about this book in particular, and not just because it is sort of the culmination of all of her other works to this point. They’ve all been driving to this destination. You could read this one without having read any of her other works, but I wouldn’t recommend it – a LOT of world and character building has gone into these. Like many romance authors, […]



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