Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“He also has only nine months to live, although he doesn’t know it yet.”

The Life of Chuck by Stephen King

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Based on the African proverb “When an old man dies, a library burns down” and the line from Walt Whitman’s poem Song of Myself “I am large, I contain multitudes”, The Life of Chuck is about the life of Charles “Chuck” Krantz, told backwards from his death to his early childhood, and how his death is causing the death of the universe held inside of him. Setting aside the contents for a moment, you have to love any book with Tom Hiddleston on the cover. […]

When in Doubt, Lie Your Tongue Off

Dangerous Obsession by Natasha Peters

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Rhawnie was born in a Romani encampment in Russia, but a murder and an encounter with a man she is fated to follow to the ends of the earth launch her on a path that will see her go halfway across the globe. It took me way too long to realize that Rhawnie is a corruption of the Indian name Rani, which means ‘queen’. This is a nice and long and adventurous bodice ripper of the kind I like perfectly. What sets it apart from […]

La Parisienne

The Ladies' Paradise by Émile Zola

Nana by Émile Zola

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The Ladies’ Paradise – 4 stars Denise Baudu comes dirt-poor to Paris with her younger brothers to work at her uncle’s shop, but instead goes to work at its greatest competitor – the ever-growing department store the Ladies’ Paradise, presided over by the Great Seducer Octave Mouret, who falls in love with Denise only to find out she may be one of the only things in the world he cannot buy. I was in the mood for a Victorian novel, but none of the usual […]

“Wealth is just security. Luxury is living carefree.”

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater

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I absolutely love Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle series—I find her writing very beautiful, and it’s one of a few YA series that I fully recommend to adults as well. I’ve been looking forward to reading The Listeners, her debut adult novel, since I’d heard it was going to be released. The story opens in January of 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the entrance of the US into World War 2. June is the general manager of a luxury hotel catering to […]

She died for the third time in a week and a half

The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam by Megan Bannen

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Tanrian Marshal Rosie Fox dies in chapter one of The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam, but that’s not her biggest problem. Her biggest problem is that she comes back to life. She’s immortal and she doesn’t like it. Rosie’s death happened when she tried to touch something inside a malfunctioning portal device. The portal device also died in the incident, requiring Dr. Adam Lee to visit Tanria to fix the portal. Marshal Fox and Dr. Lee met five years earlier, and she bound his wounded […]

An Eminently Quotable Novel

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

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This book was a first for me: the first time I ever tabbed a book. I had avoided doing so in the past because I thought it required some kind of system, but this novel is just so quotable that I couldn’t resist (though I didn’t develop a system). It’s largely about Cyrus, an Iranian-American man whose life has been shaped by tragedy, generational trauma, and addiction. Now two years into recovery, he is focused on trying to find meaning and purpose in life and […]



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