Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“So long as I have questions to which there are no answers, I shall go on writing.”

The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector, Benjamin Moser (translator)

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 The Hour of the Star is a book that climbed onto this year’s TBR by the Read Harder Challenge. One of this year’s tasks is to read a work of literary fiction by a BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and/or disabled author. So, I went to books already on my radar to see if any fit the bill and sure enough Clarice Lispector’s final book did just that (Lispector was severely injured in a fire in her 40s and nearly lost her hand). It also was a book […]

The Local and the Yokel

A Great Deliverance (Inspector Lynley no.1) by Elizabeth George

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In a small town in the English countryside, the head of a well-liked local farmer is violently separated from his body. Holding the axe that facilitated the act is his daughter Roberta, sitting nearby and exclaiming her lack of regret over it all. But things don’t add up, and Scotland Yard sends inspector and eighth earl of Pudsey-Le-Stodge Thomas Lynley to crack the case. He is accompanied by bundle of nerves and 8th season Eastenders character Barbara Havers. Can Havers put aside her dislike for […]

As she watched, a single dark red petal broke free from the vine just above the plaque and floated, strange and slow, all the way to the ground.

Ladies in Hating by Alexandra Vasti

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After reading Charlie Jane Anders’s Lessons in Magic and Disaster last month, I particularly enjoyed reading about two women writing books and falling in love in Georgian England. In Lessons, Jamie was researching magic and queer subtext in a fictional novel written by real 18th century woman, Sarah Fielding. In Ladies in Hating, Georgiana and Catriona are each authors of gothic books under pseudonyms. It is still scandalous for a woman to be an author, especially of gothic literature, though Georgiana’s identity is somewhat of […]

Krampus kramps your naughty style

Tonight Is Krampus Night by Kyle Sullivan

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One thing I try to do every year is to find at least three Christmas books and at least one other winter holiday book. The Christmas books I try to find are a religious one, a more fun one (Santa, or silly reindeer have been in the past) and an Other book (maybe spiritual but it hits the spirit of things). I try to find one Hanukkah and one Winter Solstice, or something that is a holiday and/or just fun. This year I found a […]

Interesting, Enjoyable, but Missing Something

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

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cbr17bingo – G I liked this book. But. I think I struggle a bit with books for which I can’t quite determine the point, although I recognize they don’t necessarily need a single, clear-cut point (or that I could have just missed it). I did genuinely enjoy this novel of interlocking narratives—a style that the author tends toward. The novel is about how Jonathan Alkaitis’s Ponzi scheme affected a wide range of people, from Vincent (who maintains a throughline of the book), to his employees, […]

You don’t want to be treated like family by THIS family

Cry Out Loud by Tara O’Connor

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Tara O’Connor has four authored and illustrated titles to her name, plus several others she is the illustrator of. Cry Out Loud is one of those titles she is the complete creator. I have read three of her works (the fourth is being searched for…). Each one is a little different from the others, yet they all have a similar tone. However, one of the interesting things is that I would say each book is for a different audience. Their memoir Roots, is for the […]



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