Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


When You Make a Deal with a Nixie, remember to find out if your wife is pregnant.

The Nixie of the Mill-Pond and Other European Stories by Kel McDonald

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Do not judge a book by the cover is probably the first thing I learned about books. However, sometimes you can, sometimes not and sometimes there are books that you do both. The Nixie of the Mill-Pond and Other European Stories is one of those books that you think you know what is going on (there will be a Nixie, which looks like a mermaid/banshee/fairy, that will do something in a mill-pond) but open it up and there is something completely different. On page one we […]

“If you spy a naked man among the pines, you must run as if the Devil were after you.”

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

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Never have truer words been spoken! This collection of short stories crept around my periphery for some time, and I am both overjoyed to have finally given in to it and disappointed in myself for not biting earlier. I came across it originally on a list of fairy-tale retellings on Autostraddle, and when it popped up again in the employee recommendations section of one of my favorite booksellers (Crow Bookshop in Burlington, what’s up!) I knew that it was meant to be. Still, it sat […]

When you have a soft spot for Russians named Viktor and he still doesn’t save the book

Deadly Class, Volume 1: Regan Youth by Rick Remender

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A joy of being a bookstore employee is that you never know what you might find. Usually I find some gem when they find their way to the cart next to my desk that unfortunately means we were unable to sell it and it is being returned to the publisher. Deadly Class, Volume 1: Regan Youth was not one of those gems. There is no question why Rick Remender’s graphic novel was being returned. The cover was the draw for me so that was not […]

Basic Witch

The Possession by Michael Rutger

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The first novel of Michael Rutger’s, which I read and reviewed for Cannonball last year, was an off-the-wall terrifying tome about a YouTube film crew getting lost in an isolated part of the Grand Canyon and stumbling upon a bizarre and terrifying relic of unknown earth history in the process. ‘The Anomaly’ was CRAZY and scary and addictive and disgusting and claustrophobic, somehow, laugh-out-loud funny at times.  The characters were as close to flesh and bone as you can get in a spooky story and […]

Jack and Jill the backstory

Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire

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I half succeeded at a library run the other day. I did succeed at getting the next 3 Wayward Children books, but failed to get any more of a manga series I’d grabbed the first 3 of on a whim; at some point in 2 days someone took volumes 4-12. Now I’ve gotta wait at least 2 weeks on those. At least I had Down Among the Sticks and Bones to make up for it. Volume 2 of the Wayward Children series is basically the […]

Yes, I know there are two similar images but couldn’t decide which one I liked more as art is the strongest part of the books

Angel Catbird Volume 2: To Castle Catula by Margaret Atwood

Angel Catbird Volume 3: The Catbird Roars by Margaret Atwood

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Angel Catbird is like a car crash: you want to, but you just cannot look away. There are too many puns and way too long in places. There are cat, vampire, rat, bird and more, puns. There is good-old-fashioned pulp fiction streaming across the pages. Not to mention a modern-to-look-at set of illustrations that are seeped deep in the old school vividly colored and uniquely detailed comic illustrations. Margaret Attwood’s text and Johnnie Christmas illustrations saturate Volume 2 and Volume 3 with these elements. Then, […]



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