Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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“Maybe I just thought I was a nonviolent person because in my old life, nobody had ever backed me into a corner with a knife to my throat.”

This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews

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Maggie wakes up one day, cold, naked and soaked to the skin in the gutter of Kair Toren, the sprawling capital city of Rellas, where her favourite fantasy novels are set. For the past decade, Maggie has read and re-read the two books in the unfinished series enough times that she knows the setting, prominent characters and the plot intimately. It’s what makes it possible for her to lie in wait, trying to rob a shady minor character just so she’ll have enough money to […]

Quilt of love

A Language of Stitches: The Radical Quilts of Rosie Lee Tompkins by Constance Moore

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When I need a quick read I look through my online reader saves and find all sorts of goodies. One of those was A Language of Stitches: The Radical Quilts of Rosie Lee Tompkins by Constance Moore. Read (obviously) via an online reader, this book is due end of July-early August 2026. Rosie Lee Tompkins (born Effie Mae Martin ) reminds me of the artist Sister Mary Corita Kent because of their artistic style. Both were unusual, yet they were products of their time. They both […]

Belonging

Until We Meet Again by Lily Kim Qian

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Until We Meet Again by Lily Kim Qian is thoughtful and reflective. Qian gives us a coming of age story of a young herself, who is a Chinese-Canadian girl who deals with her family dynamics such as her mothers mental illness, her mother and fathers volatile relationship, and dealing with growing up with a caring father, but one who is just doing the best he can, and the attitudes of immigrant parents and “old school” Chinese values vs her western world. The cultural differences of […]

Twin sisters: one American and one Chinese

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove by Barbra Demick

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Daughters of the Bamboo Grove (2025) by Barbara Demick is another book I first saw on NPR’s Favorite Books List. Then my husband read it, and he also recommended it to me. Demick is a journalist who was based in China for a number of years. She writes about China’s one-child policy, and how that affected children and families in China. Because of the draconian rules around having too many children, children were being abandoned in growing numbers, especially baby girls. In 1992, China allowed for international […]

This is really neat to learn about!

Pufflings Fly Free!: A Rescue Tale from Iceland by Colleen Paeff and by Linda Ólafsdóttir

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Recently (via email) I met someone who actually goes out and helps wood frogs and salamanders at night cross the road. I had heard about this, but never knew someone who actually did it. This person recommended their book Is It Time, Yet? (by Lynn Levine and Dirk Steinhoefel). I will be finding a copy of it soon. But in the meantime, I found Pufflings Fly Free!: A Rescue Tale from Iceland by Colleen Paeff and illustrated by  Linda Ólafsdóttir. This book is basically the […]

When Misfits Go Exploring

The Marsh Fellows by Anna-Laura Sullivan

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Once upon a time a young girl liked to read. She grew up to be an adult (physically) who liked to read. And one day, due to an email she received saying, “Sign up for a chance to win these books” she did. And she won several online reader copies from IDW Comics & Entertainment and Top Shelf Productions. She was excited. Finally a lunchtime came where she could start reading. She was not sure which one to start with, but since one book had […]



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