Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Sad Gay Bois

Role Model (Game Changers #5) by Rachel Reid

The Long game (Game Changers #6) by Rachel Reid

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

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I don’t know how I ended up reading so many books about gay men this year (and I still have Song of Achilles on my TBR, so go figure) but by and large I’m enjoying myself, so whatever.    The Long Game (Rachel Reid) ***½ Shane and Ilya are back! Everyone’s favourite gay hockey players have moved from casual hookups to being in an actual, honest-to-God relationship – one that they still have to keep hidden from everyone because the media still pitches them as […]

“…the glorious Republic cannot rise unless the monarchy falls and the monarchy cannot fall unless two women bring it down.”

A Rome of One's Own: The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire by Emma Southon

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When I read Emma Southon’s A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum I was pleased by the way Southon’s immense understanding of the available primary and secondary sources historians have available to work from regarding Roman history impact the ways in which we can know anything at all about things that happened so long ago. That same nuance in explaining the sources – and how much they can or cannot be trusted – is utilized to great degree in A Rome of One’s Own as Southon begins […]

“The age of atrocity has wounded the word”

Versions of Survival: The Holocaust and the Human Spirit by Lawrence Langer

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Lawrence Langer’s Versions of Survival: The Holocaust and the Human Spirit is one of the most brilliant books on the Holocaust I have ever read. Langer tackles the meaning of survivorship in the death camps, using language as a lens to examine the experience of atrocity and annihilation and those that did and did not survive. Langer divides his book into four sections: Language as Refuge; Auschwitz: The Death of Choice; Elie Wiesel: Divided Voice in a Divided Universe; and Gertrud Kolmer and Nelly Sachs: […]

Honestly, I didn’t even know virologist was a word, let alone how bada$$ they can be!

June Almeida, Virus Detective!: The Woman Who Discovered the First Human Coronavirus by Suzanne Slade and Elisa Paganelli

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Back in 2021 the book June Almeida, Virus Detective!: The Woman Who Discovered the First Human Coronavirus by Suzanne Slade and illustrator Elisa Paganelli was published. In 2026 I found a copy of it. I then read it. I liked it. And then I wrote a review about it. The theme is simple: woman scientist discovered ways of counteracting viruses, learned to use machines in ways no one had before, and would decades before it would be needed on a global scale, tells us that […]

And I didn’t even mention it felt like it was book two to start with.

Silver Vessels by Steve Orlando

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If the graphic novel, Silver Vessels by Steve Orlando and illustrated by Katia Vecchio was any less believable, I would expect to see Bobby Ewing in the shower at the end of it. If you know that reference you’re not part of the aimed at ages of 10 and up. Who will  love the precocious teens, their hunting mysterious sunken treasure, the mysterious APEX bad guys, the coming of age elements. But this adult reader feels there were a lot of really unbelievable parts. My […]

This book is out now, so lucky you! You don’t have to wait.

The Endless Game by J.D. Amato and Sophie Morse

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The Endless Game by J.D. Amato and illustrator Sophie Morse has some plot points that I personally dislike, but kids at least aged 9 and up would be the perfect audience for this graphic novel. The concept is for decades the two sides of the town have been at odds. Think “greasers and socs.” Think “Uptown Kids vs. Downtown Kids.” Think “Hatfield and McCoys.”  Then one day, the mayor of the town decides to have a “friendly” game of Capture the Flag to have some […]



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