Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Audiobook Was Better

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

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Back before the hype blew up around The Correspondent, I tried to read it in print and had to quit after a few pages: the pacing was too slow for me and the MC wasn’t interesting enough to follow along with. After it became popular, reading it became a professional obligation, I decided to try the audiobook. This is my favorite strategy for books that aren’t wowing me in print, but that Must Be Read for whatever reason. It worked.  What seemed dreary and tedious on […]

Farmer Needs a Better Wife

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

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This is the most “celebrity book club” book I’ve ever read, and I mean that in an absolutely derogatory way. Broken Country starts with a minor domestic tragedy on a farm owned by Frank and Beth, our narrator. As Frank and his brother Jimmy are dealing with their sheep, a neighbor’s dog runs into their enclosure and starts wildly attacking the lambs. Jimmy shoots the dog in order to save the flock, just as the neighbor and his young son catch up to their animal. […]

Fairy tales don’t always have a happy ending

Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

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I have mixed feelings about Kristin Hannah. Sometimes, I like her stuff (The Great Alone), sometimes I can’t stand it (Comfort & Joy), and sometimes I’m in the middle (The Women). I think this one falls squarely in the middle, too. Just before Christmas, Evan Whitson, the family patriarch, falls ill and dies. On his deathbed, he extracts a promise from his daughters – award-winning photographer and wanderer Nina and the stalwart, type-A Meredith – to really learn about their mother, the cold and distant […]

Eat the Rich

The Guillotine by Delilah S. Dawson

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This book was INSANE. I saw this somewhere on my Facebook feed… someone posted they liked it, didn’t want to give any spoilers, and so I just put it on my TBR list and didn’t read the blurb. I was looking for something quick and easy Sunday morning, and this was available from the library, so in to the Kindle it went. I read this book in maybe two hours. Holy shit, is all I have to say. The long and short of the story […]

The Someday Garden by Ashley Poston

The Someday Garden by Ashley Poston

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I absolutely loved Poston’s newest. It had everything my little romantic heart likes to see in a romance novel. Great chemistry, people actually talking to each other and not avoiding things, great setting, great love scenes, etc. I absolutely loved The Dead Romantics and this one is up there with that for me. The Someday Garden follows thirty plus year old Sophie Drear. Sophie’s a horticulturist and spending her summer on loan from her regular house helping to renovate the gardens at Lilymoor House in […]

It’s like I tried reconnecting with an ex.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

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25 years. This has been 25 years of my life. I first read these books in early 2002, in my freshman year of college. We had a cheap, late-run movie theater in my college town that charged $1 for movies that were nearing the end of their theatrical run. My girlfriend and I went to see virtually every movie that got a screening. When Harry Potter came to the theater, she wanted to go. I didn’t. But, as is the case in every relationship, you […]



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