Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Yes, hello, we are here, perched on the balustrade, biding our time and being magnificent.

The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson

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I have had to take a breather from Hugo award voting for a while, but I thought I’d jump back into it this year. Only to have this doorstopper from an author I had not come across before dropped on my feet. Thankfully, The Raven Scholar turned out to be an absolute page turner, a bit of a kitchen sink of fantasy tropes, and a lot more playful than I expected. An absolute joy to race though.  Now to those fantasy tropes: one of the […]

Horror Month 2023: #1

Dark Hollow by John Connolly

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For October 2023, I’m going to read as many horror- and/or Halloween-themed books as I can. It’s my own personal reading challenge to clear some stuff off my shelf and engage with other stuff on my TBR list. A few years ago, there was the framework of a tweet that made the rounds saying Men will literally do X instead of go to therapy. “X” could be watching football or training for UFC or any other such thing. The roots of it were legit: men are conditioned […]

“Walking along a blade’s edge was only fun until the blade stopped being a metaphor.”

An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson

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CBR14 Bingo: Bird (bird in the title, bird on the cover, love interest turns into a bird, there are so many birds in this story) Isobel lives in a little town where it’s always summer. This is because her town is just on the border of the Faerie lands, and most of the people who live there are valued by the Fair folk because of their Craft (anything that basically involves creating something, be it building, sewing, baking, cooking, or painting), acts that the Fey […]

A Swoony Series Ender

Her Unexpected Roommate by Jackie Lau

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I have arrived at the final Cider Bar Sisters book by Jackie Lau. This is Rose’s story, and we’ve been introduced to Rose and her depression in bits and pieces over the previous books, but I think it’s important to note that Her Unexpected Roommate opens with an author’s note where Jackie Lau lays out what her reasons are for writing a lead like Rose and exactly the sorts of struggles the reader is going to experience via her characters (specifically treatment-resistant depression, and trauma […]

Much said beautifully but too much left unsaid

The Maker of Swans: A Novel by Paraic O’Donnell

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Cbr14bingo bird On the face of it, this novel has a lot going for it: murder, a secret society, an English manor, a man servant who has seen it all. And yet the book was quite frustrating to read. On one hand, the prose is exquisite and the premise of the plot arresting. On the other hand, O’Donnell teases the reader without providing a satisfying payoff in the end. I didn’t want to put it down, but ultimately, I felt sort of cheated. The novel […]

Poetry Books

How to Read a Poem by Terry Eagleton

Lords of Limit by Geoffrey Hill

The Sounds of Poetry: A Brief Guide by Robert Pinsky

The Trouble with Poetry by Billy Collins

Selected Poems of WB Yeats by WB Yeats

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

New Hampshire by Robert Frost

Emily Dickinson by Poems and Letters

Gilgamesh by Ed. Stephen Mitchell

Leaves of Grass 1855 by Walt Whitman

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CBR14Bingo – Mind – This book addresses the “heart” elements of poetry with a literary critical mind approach. How to Read a Poem – 5/5 Stars This is a book that I really enjoyed but even Terry Eagleton admits that it’s not much help to anyone who hasn’t read a decent amount of literary criticism, especially for the first half of the book. It’s rare for an author to suggest that maybe for some readers, starting at chapter 5 (out of 7) would yield the […]



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