Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“The world, the girl knew, was worse than savage, the world was unmoved.”

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

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I read The Vaster Wilds (2023) by Lauren Groff because it was on Obama’s Favorite Books list last year. I have found that Barack Obama has great taste in literature (although I often skip over the biographies he recommends because they are just too long). I’ve read Florida by Lauren Groff and had mixed feelings about it. The Vaster Wilds is my first full-length novel by Groff, and I was impressed. This story takes place in the winter of 1609-1610 in the Jamestown colony when […]

“If you have any sort of personality, someone will eventually want to kill you.”

We Solve Murders (#1) by Richard Osman

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I am a huge, shouting, fervent fan of Richard Osman as he has fully captured his heart with the funny charming and heartwarming “Thursday Murder Club” book series. I was dismayed to learn he was taking a break from writing it, but obviously open to reading anything he wanted to put out there. As we often say to our son, I was “impressed, but not surprised” that I loved this first installment of a new series and will continue loudly telling everyone to read any […]

Mindblowing, but not in a good way

The Dispatcher by John Scalzi

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This is my fifth Scalzi novel, so at this point, I must be a fan! I will admit, I was nearing the end of the year and still too far away from hitting my Half Cannonball so, on a quiet afternoon, I found myself googling “Short Free Audiobooks” in desperation. I stumbled upon the Dispatcher, saw the author’s name and the runtime (2 hours and 18 minutes), downloaded this audiobook (audionovella?) without hesitation. Tony Valdez is the titular Dispatcher, a person who is paid to […]

A different kind of Tingle

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

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Chuck Tingle is the renouned author of such classics as: ‘Pounded in the Butt by My Own Butt’, ‘Bigfoot Pirates Haunt My Balls’, and ‘Space Raptor Butt Invasion’… I can’t even write this with a straight face. Let’s just say: Tingle seems to be quite a character! Camp Damascus is my first foray into his writings, and I have to say, I was won over. In fact, I was (at times) blown away by the beauty of his writing. He’s deft at painting a picture […]

Yeet the Rich.

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

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It’s a quiet, early morning in a summer camp in the Adirondack mountains, 1975, when teenager Barbara van Laar is discovered missing from her bunk. The alarm is raised quickly, but there is no sign of Barbara. As the search progresses, skeletons come out of the closet and worlds collide. Barbara is the daughter of the wealthy Van Laar family, owners of the camp and the surrounding land. The Van Laars are remarkably eager to steer the investigation and they don’t seem particularly interested in […]

“You can forever remember the wrongs done to you as long as you live,” she said. “But if you forget ’em and go on living, it’s almost as good as forgiving.”

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

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This book was given to me as a CBR Book Exchange Gift last year (thanks, friend!) and had a lot of buzz about it last year; I finally got around to reading it this year, nudged by the fact that it was the November book club selection of my library book club. It was great for book club, in that overall reception to this novel was very divisive, which made for great discussion. This novel is about 1960s Americana, focused on the lives of Jewish […]



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