Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Our childhood was a fire.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

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Books that follow a set of characters over decades (in this case a span of 50-ish years) and allow the reader to watch lives unfold from childhood to adulthood are fascinating to me. I appreciate the time spent to grow with them and to see how and why they become who they are. Combine that with the succinct, marvelous, heart-wrenching prose that Patchett dishes out and I am invested. When Cyril Conroy purchases a mansion outside of Philadelphia as a surprise for his wife, Elna, […]

The stunning success of the house could be attributed to the architect…

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

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This is the new Ann Patchett novel, and I have a variety different thoughts about it. For one, I think it’s good. Two, the audiobook is read by Tom Hanks, and while he doesn’t bring any expressly different kind of dimension to the novel, he’s obviously a comforting presence as a reader. Three, this novel is an interesting experiment in which a contemporary novel I am familiar with (Boomers writing about their post-war childhoods dealing with distant parents, divorce, Vietnam, and other aspects of a […]

And they won by a lambslilde!

Lambslide by Ann Patchett

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I tend to roll my eyes when here is a children’s book (or any book) by a famous adult author or person. You know that the book will either fly off the shelf or sit there because of who it is and not necessarily because it is a good or bad book. However, you pretty much know the outcome ahead of time: if you are in a liberal area you know Marlon Bundo’s Day in the Nation’s Capital will most likely not sell, but in […]

Hostages and Opera

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

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I picked up Bel Canto (2001) by Ann Patchett because it was chosen for my book club. And about a week after my book club met, I finally finished reading it. My tardiness in finishing should not reflect on this novel, which I found very interesting and read quickly. The problem was that I started reading the night before my book club met. An unnamed South American country (most likely Peru) is wooing Katsumi Hosokawa, a Japanese business mogul, to invest in their country. They throw a […]

CBR Bingo (7) Dream Vacation

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My husband is Brazilian; he was born in Sao Paulo but moved to Texas when he was a pre-schooler and became a US citizen years before we got married. I’ve always found it ironic that my soul mate was born thousands of miles away from me but the houses we grew up in are walking distance from one another. Despite our long relationship and the extensive family he still has living down there I’ve never been. There are a few reasons for this: it is […]

The question is whether or not you choose to disturb the world around you, or if you choose to let it go on as if you had never arrived

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I picked up this book in my ongoing love affair with fiction about the natural world. I also really enjoyed  Patchett’s “Commonwealth” and I wanted to read more of her stuff.  A little bit “Heart of Darkness” and a little bit “Poisonwood Bible“,  Ann Patchett’s “A State of Wonder” explores maternal love,  the big business of pharmacology and the ethics of interfering with indigenous people.  There’s a lot going on in this book. When a letter arrives bearing the news that Dr. Anders Eckman has […]



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