Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site

> FAQ Home
> Tag: classics

“Never fear quarrels, but seek hazardous adventures.”

The Three Musketeers (The d'Artagnan Romances, #1) by Alexandre Dumas

by Leave a Comment

Nobody told me this book would be funny! Well, in case you didn’t know it, this book is funny! I did know it would be ridiculously long, but I did the audiobook, and Bill Homewood was a very fun narrator, and it didn’t feel as long as it could have. For some reason, I’ve always thought this book would be boring, but it’s a swashbuckling adventure Romance, so in hindsight that was a weird opinion to have. Maybe because the cover looks boring, or I’m […]

“I call it relief, though it was only the relief that a snap brings to a strain or the burst of a thunderstorm to a day of suffocation. It was at least change, and it came with a rush.”

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

by Leave a Comment

Even though after reading Henry James in school several times and then declaring him my nemesis, for he is the master triumphant of the never-ending sentence, and saying I would never read from him again, I could not then resist the pull of an audiobook narrated by Emma Thompson, and indeed I am glad I did not do so. Phewf, done with that nonsense. That is what it is like to read Henry James. The first paragraph in The Wings of the Dove nearly killed […]

“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

by 2 Comments

In one word: Staggering Cannonball Read Bingo: Hot I will never recover from the origins of this book. That Mary Shelley started writing it to tell a spooky story on a rainy day AT THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN is staggering. And that this story has stood the test of time and become such a classic and revisited tale, so much so that I’m re-reading this book that I read when I was 13 because my kid is now reading it at 13? Astounding. So to […]

Look for the Bare Necessities! Classic storytelling, talking animals, and a scoop of racism.

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

by 6 Comments

CBR 14 BINGO: Snake, because snakes figure into multiple stories in this book (Kaa the snake in Mowgli’s stories, and Nag & Nagaina in “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”) The Jungle Book has got to be the classic “Love it AND Hate it” book. On the one hand you get classic storytelling by a Nobel-prize winning author and talking animals. On the other hand, you get to feel uncomfortable in a way that only a 19th-Century white man born under the British Raj in India can make you feel. […]

The Sundial

The Sundial by Shirley Jackson

by Leave a Comment

If this had been shorter. I am sure I would have loved it. But it just went on and on and it took me most of last night and this morning to get through. I loved the plot, and even the opening by Victor LaValle. But the whole book just wanders and then eventually we get to what I consider an odd and open-ended ending. At least I had a chance to read this while I had candles burning nearby. “The Sundial” with an introduction […]

The War of the Worlds

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

by Leave a Comment

Why is it when it’s a “Classic” I go…yeah this is not for me. I am really regretting not listening to this one. I heard it’s better that way. Trying to read this via my phone browser (yep, could not download as an e-book) was another pain which is why it took me so long to get through it. It’s fine, just not that interesting after a while. Reading about an invasion of aliens from Mars would probably have scared me prior to watching E.T., […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo