Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Reading Austen Is Really Just a British Travel Guide

Persuasion by Jane Austen

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Any time I read Austen, I find myself much more interested in the settings than the actual story. This may be because I’m not a fan of romance, and at their core, most of Austen’s work revolve around character’s getting together. But her ability to place me so specifically in her settings is one of my favorite parts of the Austen novels. In Persuasion, we move from the English countryside to the shore town of Lyme, and lastly to Bath. Until reading this, I’d never heard […]

I kinda wanna try faerie fruit

Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees

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The town of Lud sits on the borders of Faerie at a place where two rivers join. Everyone in Lud prefers to pretend that Faerie just doesn’t exist, but when the children of some of Lud’s most prominent families start consuming highly addictive faerie fruit – and some even disappearing over the borders of Faerie – Lud’s Mayor Nathaniel Chanticleer (whose own child has also been at the fruit) decides something must be done. Lud-in-the-Mist is a very charming book that, despite sometimes feeling a […]

“We need new songs.”

The Silence of the Girls: A Novel by Pat Barker

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I recently reviewed Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles for CBR12 bingo, and I referred to it as a gateway into a genre I call “reimagined classics” or “classics fanfic”. The Silence of the Girls is yet another outstanding addition to this genre and it happens to overlap with The Song of Achilles, presenting several main characters and incidents from The Iliad from a very different perspective. Pat Barker imagines for us the life of Briseis, a Trojan princess who becomes Achilles’ slave. Through the […]

Can you imagine a life where all you have to do is summer in the Italian countryside?

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

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CBR12 BINGO: I Wish Double BINGO! Vertical: The Roaring 20s, Pandemic, Friendship, Green, I Wish Horizontal: Money, No Money, Repeat, I Wish, Violet The title of my review comes from the classic episode of The Office in which we learn about the Finer Things Club. Oscar: Can you imagine a life where all you have to do is summer in the Italian countryside? Pam: And spend time with George Emerson. That’s what I would do. That sums up why I selected A Room with a View […]

Fanfic — Classics Edition

The Song of Achilles: A Novel by Madeline Miller

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Cbr12bingo Gateway BINGO horizontal (Gateway to Shelfie) I first read The Song of Achilles for CBR4, and for me, it is the gateway to a genre that I will call “reimagined classics” or perhaps “fanfic: classics edition.” This is the first book I can remember reading that is based on a classic story, in this case The Iliad, expanding on a part of it and telling it from the perspective of a minor character. Re-imagined classics allow authors to go into more detail on aspects […]



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