Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


a thousand apologies and what feels like a thousand reviews (through November 2023)

Edinburgh by Alexander Chee

The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Kindred by Octavia E Butler

Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Hinumegin er mars by Sólrun Michelsen

Trust by Hernan Diaz

How Westminster Works . . . and Why It Doesn't by Ian Dunt

Happy Place by Emily Henry

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones

The Establishment: And How They Get Away with It by Owen Jones

In the Beginning was the Sea by Tomás González

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

The City & the City by China Miéville

A History of Burning by Janika Oza

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert

Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent by Dipo Faloyin

Passion Simple by Annie Ernaux

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Forget Me Not by Julie Soto

Hotel of Secrets by Diana Biller

The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain by Brett Christophers

The Late Mrs. Willoughby by Claudia Gray

Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon

A Tempest at Sea by Sherry Thomas

Politics On the Edge: A Memoir From Within by Rory Stewart

Rivals by Katherine McGee

Reign by Katherine McGee

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

The Iliad by Homer, Emily Wilson

Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America by Michael Harriot

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

10 Things that Never Happened by Alexis Hall

The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

The Fraud by Zadie Smith

A Dangerous Kind of Lady by Mia Vincy

A Little Life by Hanya Yanighara

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

The Starting Over Game by girl_with_kaleidoscope_eyes

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Edinburg by Alexander Chee CBR15: Sex True fact, when someone British asked me what I was reading I pronounced this “Edin-BERG” and to their credit they didn’t laugh but instead asked, with some horrified sincerity, if that’s how Americans say it. It’s not! At least, not on purpose. It’s just how can the English language claim to have been invented in a country that seems to not have grasped even a shred of understanding of how the various letters in it work? I digress. This is […]

Second Chances Sometimes Are Worth It

The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson

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I had flipped through The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England in a bookstore and decided it didn’t look great. I’m not a big fan of first-person narrating, and I saw a now mildly spoilery part about 2/3 of the way in that seemed dumb, so I put is back. Fast-forward about 6 months and I see the same nook at the library. On a whim, I decided to give it another chance. I’m actually kind of glad that I did. Our narrator wakes […]

CBR 15 Bingo: Politics – Mistborn Era 1

The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

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***Spoilers for the first book in the series*** ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ The Well of Ascension: I loved the first book in this series, The Final Empire. I love a well-done Fantasy heist, and I dearly loved the characters, so I was eager to get into the second book. This was a completely different beast. The Well of Ascension is much more focused on the politics of rule, especially after the end of a tyrant. Kelsior’s Crew has installed Elend Venture, the young political […]

The End of An Empire

The Final Empire - Mistborn Era 1 by Brandon Sanderson

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I had this book on my TBR for a loooooong time, and I’m so glad I finally got around to it. It was every bit as good as everyone said. Vin is an orphan who grew up hungry in the slums. She always knew that she had an ability she called “Luck” that helped her in tricky situations. What she didn’t know was that she was actually an Allomancer, or a “Mistborn”, someone gifted with the power to draw magical abilities from metals. She is […]

Edge Dancer – it fell off a cliff

Edge Dancer by Brandon Sanderson

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My son got me started on the Stormlight Archives series from Brandon Sanderson and I fell in love with the story. They were complex, filled with interesting characters and a world that was richly defined. None of that is present in this book. Edge Dancer takes places after book 2 of the Stormlight Archives and focuses solely on one character that appeared in a brief aside in book 2. One of the strengths of the previous books was the multitude of characters, all of whom […]

“Even small actions have consequences. And while we can often choose our actions, we rarely get to choose our consequences.”

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson

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Backing Brandon Sanderson’s Secret Project Kickstarter is one of the most fun things I’ve ever done. Tress of the Emerald Sea is the first of those four secret novels Sanderson wrote during the pandemic when he wasn’t touring and had some “free time” on his hands. Of course what Brando Sando does on his free time is write more books, because he famously takes a break from writing to recharge by writing something else. The guy is a straight up nerd and I’m so glad […]



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