Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

So many magical bastards!

Fool’s Quest: The Fitz and The Fool Trilogy Book 2 by Robin Hobb

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Cbr18bingo Success because with this review I have achieved a bingo blackout and for the first time, I have done so without using the “free” space! Book 2 of The Fitz and The Fool Trilogy is 700+ pages of action and heartache. I know there are a few Cannonballers out there who love Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series as much as I do, and I am going to try my best to review Fool’s Quest without spoiling the plot. As ever, there are wild […]

Hey Hey, My My, Rock and Roll Will Never Die

Rock*: A Mainstream Alternative History of Alternative Mainstream Music by Chuck Klosterman

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Seemingly inspired by the trite music critic observation that The Velvet Underground & Nico only sold 10,000 copies but all 10,000 of those people went out and started a band, Chuck Klosterman’s new novel Rock*: A Mainstream Alternative History of Alternative Mainstream Music imagines that music history (and world history) took a different path. What if The Velvet Underground had become the most popular band in the world, instead of The Beatles? How might that change in taste have reverberated throughout the culture? And how might […]

“In the modern world, in short, you are your address.”

The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power by Deirdre Mask

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CBR18 Bingo: Refuge – People’s homes are meant to be their refuge, but this book makes the case that their street addresses also have a significant power over their lives. We usually think of our home addresses as the details we fill out to get mail, but the story of street names and house numbers, and what they say about us and the places we live, are much more complicated than you’d think. As a child I lived on Anna Road at the intersection with […]

“You are mine until the grave makes ghosts of both of us.”

The Rain Maiden by Jill M. Phillips

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CBR18 Bingo: Or – Philippe is constantly having to choose between his relationships with Isabel and other women, who care for him on a personal level, and his relationships with the sons of Henry II, which line up instead with his grand ambitions. Isabel of Hainault is married off to the young king of France as a child. Her beauty and her charm makes everyone around her fall under her spell, but Philippe’s ambitions may be stronger than their relationship. This book is a work […]

CBR Diversion – Books for Spooky Season

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In the spirit of Halloween (not the pop-up store), this diversion, and our upcoming book chat Zoom, will focus on all things spooky. I will use the idea of spooky loosely here to include: ghosts, vampires, gothic, witches, horror, and things that goes bump in the night. I must start by saying I am a bit of a scaredy cat when it comes to reading horror. I prefer being able to sleep at night. However, this has not stopped me from being in a gothic […]

A Summerween Romance Audiobook Update

I Haunt it That Way by Isabelle Popp

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I’ve really struggled with how to review I Haunt it That Way because I enjoyed it so much but it is a weird book. A weird book I loved, but difficult to describe. I Haunt it That Way is a ghost story and a romance. Like Popp’s debut, Let’s Give ’em Pumpkin to Talk About (which I also loved), it’s about shifting how we see. It’s about grief, not only for someone we lost but for versions of ourself that we couldn’t be earlier. In Haunt, […]



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