Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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ugh. show not tell the “NOT ALL CONFEDERATES” edition

Varina by Charles Frazier

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Well y’all, I’ve done it again. I found another piece of sniveling, self-serving garbage. I finished this one out of spite. I wanted very badly, much like Signature of All Things, to cast this garbage into the sea. Unlike that previous disaster, I could not bring myself to punish the environment with this piece of “not all confederates” garbage.  Charles Frazier spent a mind-numbing 353 pages elaborating on what could have been a pamphlet – “Varina Davis was a lady that had ideas outside of […]

Man’s Greatest Mistake is Underestimating Women

Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy by Karen Abbott

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While the title and the cover art would have one presuming this was some terrible historical romance novel, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy is actually an amazingly researched, heavily detailed historical non-fiction about four women’s contributions to the outcome of the American Civil War.  The book follows two unionists, Emma Edmonds (aka Frank Thompson) and Elizabeth Van Lew, and two secessionists, Belle Boyd and Rose Greenhow, through the five years of the war, along with a summation of their lives after the war ends as well. The […]

What did Marmee’s husband do during the war?

March by Geraldine Brooks

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Cbr11bingo Birthday. Geraldine Brooks was born September 14, 1955. Bingo #9 Geraldine Brooks’ 2006 novel March is a brilliant Civil War novel that imagines the lives of Marmee and Mr. March, the parents of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Brooks, a journalist by trade, has a history of writing thoroughly researched and highly imaginative fiction. I’ve read most of her novels and they have all been superb. Year of Wonders, Caleb’s Crossing and People of the Book are all fantastic. I know I read March […]

There are better things to rebel against, Nate

Rebel by Bernard Cornwell

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Pressed upon me by a colleague, it took me a few weeks to really get into Rebel in which we meet young Nathaniel Starbuck, a Bostonite who’s fled to the South to escape the wrath of his abolitionist preacher father who is most upset that Nate has stolen a bunch of money for and then been abandoned by a floozy. Narrowly avoiding being tarred by an angry Southern mob thanks to a timely rescue by his friend’s father and wealthy landowner Washington Falcouner, Nate finds […]

Remind me never to go back in time

Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy by Karen Abbott

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This was a pretty well written, interesting look into a part of Civil War history that we don’t always get. Abbott warns at the beginning that some of the stories were told by the characters themselves and may have been exaggerated for the public and I definitely think that’s true at several points in the narrative. That caveat aside, it was really fascinating reading about these women’s lives. It was uncomfortable reading about the confederate characters, O’Neale and Boyd, but I think it’s important to […]



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