Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Shoutout to All You Sally Rand Stans Out There

The Case of the Fan-Dancer's Horse by Erle Stanley Gardner

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Oh it’s been a hot minute since I did a Perry Mason.  Here’s #29, dated 1947.  Diligently reading in order here, at least 50 more to go.  And this was a fun one! OK, a little background here, a fan dancer (Sally Rand being the most famous) could often be considered a classy dancer.  Ostrich plume fans always moving, and you might catch a peek here and there, but no more than that.  They were a burlesque act, but some made it to the big […]

It appears that 19th century soap opera adventure stories are my thing!

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

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Reviewer Note: In 2024, I started to read the free version of The Count of Monte Cristo that is available from Project Gutenberg (my go-to resource for novels in the public domain). After reading 200 pages, I couldn’t understand why I was so bored. This novel has more action than a Die Hard movie, yet I was struggling to stay interested. I decided to do some research into what’s considered the best translation of this novel, and I found recommendations for the edition translated by Robin […]

Dungeon Crawler Carl

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

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I was first introduced to Dungeon Crawler Carl by my wife, squealing with delight and laughter at a dozen hilarious things in the first couple chapters. I was a little hard of a sell for her as I think that a lot of these “normal white redditor-style human gets transferred to video game irl” tend to be very fappy and poorly written. Add in that it’s self-published and that’s a recipe for disaster in my book. The first few chapters of DCC seemed to support this: Carl […]

How Would You Handle Being Taken to a Different Time?

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

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Best for: Those who enjoy a little bit of science fiction and a lot of philosophy. In a nutshell: The UK government has a time machine, but instead of traveling into the future, they’ve decided to travel to the past to bring four people to current time to see how they can integrate into the modern era. Worth quoting: “Who thinks their job is on the side of right? They fed us all poison from a bottle marked ‘prestige’ and we developed a high tolerance […]

Quiet and Beautiful

Clear by Carys Davies

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Best for: Those who enjoy a quiet, intimate tale. In a nutshell: John is contracted to travel to a remote Scottish island to remove the last inhabitant so that the landlord can use the land to raise sheep. Worth quoting: N/A Why I chose it: This book is very popular in Scotland at the moment, where I live. I took it with me on a trip to the Outer Hebrides, as that just seemed appropriate. Review: This book is a slow burn. While the backdrop […]

“I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it”

Gideon the 9th by Tamsyn Muir

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Gideon, tired disaster gay of the Ninth House, just wants to leave. Tired of the creepy nuns, the oppressive tomb that’s considered living quarters and the promise that upon death her skeleton will continue to be press-ganged into serving the Ninth House, she packs her clothes and her dirty magazines and attempts to hit the spaceport. Only Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, won’t let her go. See, the Emperor of the Universe has summoned the heirs of all […]



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