Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Oh Oh, We’re Halfway There

Vanguard #4: Open Secrets by Dayton Ward

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This is the fourth book in the nine-book Vanguard series. This story arc, written in the 2000s-2010s, is set concurrently with Star Trek: The Original Series television show. In fact, Captain Kirk and the Enterprise show up from time to time, either in person or through Starfleet scuttlebutt. While the series is a throwback in terms of Starfleet eras, the subject matter is contemporary with a lot of sci-fi of the time – advanced, ancient tech (Mass Effect, Halo); the internal politics of Starfleet (Battlestar […]

An Intense Horror on Grief

Where Echoes Die by Courtney Gould

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Wow, this book… this is such a beautiful, painful story exploring grief and how not letting go, staying in the past can cause more harm than learning to move forward. Beck lost her mother only a few months ago and she and her sister are on their way to Texas to live with their dad, but first Beck has to find out the truth of Backravel, the place that her mother was investigating, the place that basically stole her mother from her. But things in […]

In Money We Trust

Trust by Hernan Diaz

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A friend texted me about Trust, she wanted me to read it so we could discuss it.  She dropped it off and away I went. The title Trust is a good one, because the word can be used in so many ways. The story is about a tycoon and his wife in the early 20th century. There are “trusts” in the context of money making, Wall Street, sketchy financial dealings and philanthropy. The book is also dealing with the idea of whom do we trust? […]

Publish or Perish

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

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Athena Liu has everything a young writer could want. Multiple best-sellers, critical acclaim, even a Netflix deal. Certainly those are the things her friend June Hayward wants and does not have. The achievement gap between the two former Yale classmates really eats at June, who can only begrudgingly acknowledge that Athena’s greater success might come down to her having more talent. More often, June privately grumbles about all the advantages Athena has had, like wealthy parents, English boarding schools, and tremendous support from her agent, […]

I don’t want to be that guy….but Cormac McCarthy wrote a really good book.

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

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I sometimes think of myself as a smart man. But I’m not a smart man. I’m just interested in a lot of things, so I have a tendency to look into a lot of things. That gives me a broad but fairly shallow knowledge base upon which I can build my reality. Since I go wherever my interests direct me, I can’t always predict where I’ll be, or what I’ll experience. When I try and set a course, I find that I start to drift […]

“I know why those librarians read the old stories to you. Because if it’s told well enough, for as long as the story lasts, you get to slip the trap.”

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

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This book has been spoken about with great reverence by many people in my circle, calling it life-changing, and inspiring, a read that sticks with you. One person I know is on their second reading of this big book, and if that’s not a strong endorsement, to pick it up, I don’t know what is! I checked it out once before and returned it unread, feeling daunted by the length. But it came back around again on my holds, so I decided to dig in. […]



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