Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Spooky Read for Spooky Season

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

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It’s October, and while I might not read *solely* spooky books this season, it seemed appropriate to kick off the month with a master of the genre. I have never read anything by Shirley Jackson (no, not even The Lottery) and I was most familiar with her work via Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House. Which is an excellent show (highly recommend!) but by all accounts not a great adaption of the source material. More like, inspired by. So I went into We Have […]

“Wealth is just security. Luxury is living care free.”

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater

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4.5 stars CBR17 Bingo: Culture (A lot of people from a lot of different backgrounds, countries and cultures are forced together for a time during World War II) Official plot summary: January 1942. The Avallon Hotel & Spa has always offered elegant luxury in the wilds of West Virginia, its mountain sweetwater washing away all of high society’s troubles. Local girl-turned-general manager June Porter Hudson has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. The Gilfoyles, the hotel’s aristocratic owners, have trained her […]

You’ve heard of Queen for a Day? This is Duchess for a Month.

The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff

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CBR 17 BINGO: School, because Helene has Trinity and Oriel Colleges in Oxford on her must-see list and has a hissy fit when she almost doesn’t get to see them BINGO: School, Diaspora, G, Border, Work One of the surprising benefits of stumbling upon a beautiful, used copy of 84, Charing Cross Road is that it prompted me to read Helene Hanff’s follow-up memoir, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. I hadn’t known this book existed until very recently. Apparently, after 84, Charing Cross Road was […]

Books about books are the best kinds of books

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

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CBR 17 BINGO: Favorite (revisiting this old favorite for Bingo) BINGO: Favorite, Red, Family, Border, Green Visiting local bookshops is standard practice whenever my husband and I go on vacation. Recently in Vancouver, we wandered into a store called MacLeod’s Books, which is one of those places where you can easily get lost among the piles. Books are roughly organized into genres, but each section is overwhelmed with stacks and stacks of volumes spilling over from the shelves. This is the type of place where […]

Gals being literary rivals, then pals, then more?

Ladies in Hating by Alexandra Vasti

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Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. Lady Georgiana Cleeve was disowned by her father when she announced that she was the author of several popular novels, and has lived alone with her mother ever since, cut off from all contact with her brothers, convinced that the scandal she brought on herself and her family would irrevocably tarnish the reputations of anyone connected to her. She is selling well and her books are popular, but for […]

This memoir legitimately deserves 5 stars, but I’m too angry to give it a rating yet

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

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CBR 17 BINGO: “G” (for Glass) Back in 2019, I recommended Educated to my sister. After she read and enjoyed (not sure that’s the right word) it , she asked me whether I’d ever read The Glass Castle. “In some ways, it’s worse,” she told me. I finally got around to reading The Glass Castle, and I understand now where she was coming from. While Tara Westover’s parents were consistently ignorant and controlling, the parents of Jeanette Walls were people of dichotomy. Her father was […]



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