Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

And then there were none – or were there?

Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins

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Lux and her boyfriend Nico are eking out a poorly-paid, uncomfortable living on Maui after their dream of sailing Nico’s boat, Susannah, across the Pacific was smashed due to damage to the boat which they still can’t afford to put right. The situation is rendered more irritating to Lux since Nico’s family is rich, and if he applied for help from them, the boat could be fixed, and they’d be free to travel. Instead, and after Lux is fired from her room cleaning job at […]

Recaptures most, but not all, of the magic of The Martian

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

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I, like most, loved Andy Weir’s debut The Martian. Maybe it helps that I don’t have a firm grasp on the vast majority of the science in it, but it felt grounded in reality in a way that lots of science fiction isn’t. Naturally, then, I knew I had to read Project Hail Mary as soon as I learned of its existence. I couldn’t not return to that well with Weir; I watched the Matt Damon-led Martian film without hesitation for that very same reason. With […]

Saints! Soldiers! Sorcery! Swords! Swooning!

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold

Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold

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It’s time for me to FINNALY go all-in on some good old fashioned FAN TA SY. Normally, these are the sort of books that I pick up in the bookstore, give a “hmm” at the cover, and keep walking. I’ve never been great at immersing myself in fantasy worlds outside of the big-names; I just don’t have a memory for the complex lore and histories of most fantasy epics. When I open up a book and it starts with breakdowns of family names and maps […]

Running away to the woods

A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw

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Maggie St. James is the author of five children’s books, a series called Eloise and the Fox. Her books are dark, creepy, and some think they are inappropriate for children. After a small boy dies after hiking into the Alaskan wilderness with a copy of her book, St. James walks into the wilderness and disappears. Several years later, Maggie’s parents hire Travis Wren to find their daughter. Travis is a mess, barely keeping it together, but he has a talent for finding people. His secret […]

Paco’s Story; Freud; I Hold a Wolf by the Ears

Paco's Story by Larry Heineman

Freud by Stefan Zweig

I Hold a Wolf by the Ears by Laura van den Berg

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Paco’s Story This short novel was published in 1987 and won the National Book Award. Larry Heineman tells us in this 2002 introduction to the book is that he wanted to tell a story that is as much about story telling as the story itself. This happens a lot in war novels, and especially in Vietnam novels and books like Tim O’Brien’s If I Die in a Combat Zone Box Me Up and Ship me Home and The Things they Carried. I think part of […]

Finding Beauty in the Bleakness

The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

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This book was loaned to me by a friend about six months ago, and it’s been sitting on my bookshelf taunting me while I worked through a stack of library books before their due dates caught up to me. I had no idea what the book was even about or why my friend thought I would like it, but every time I came close to forgetting about it altogether the vivid  red cover art would grab my attention and I’d move it further up my […]



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