Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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A Child’s Introduction to Pure Evil

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry

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I live two blocks away from a stellar children’s book store. It’s a habit of mine to visit several times a month. I enjoy keeping tabs on what the kids are reading these days (graphic novels) and which titles have staying power. The pale blue cover of Number the Stars is always on display in the middle reader section. The fact that Lois Lowry, an author born in 1937, still has books occupying prime shelf space is an amazing feat—but not surprising to me, given I think about The Giver on a monthly basis. Number the Stars is a gentle […]

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5/16/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:26 |

A Different Kind of Spy Novel

The Secret Lovers by Charles McCarry

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Charles McCarry meets the kind of Goldilocks/middlebrow standard I look for in spy novels: not too complex, not too simple, not too jingoistic, not too cynical. Juuuuust right. This is the third I’ve read of his Paul Christopher series and like the last two, the plot gripped me. It’s a deep plot but not so convoluted that it loses the reader. Every scene has a purpose; there are few red herrings. It hurtles its way towards its sad, surprising end, tying in perfectly with the title of the novel. The characters are great too. I like McCarry’s say-little, stay-focused protagonist […]

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9/13/2018 's CBR10 Review No:21 |

You Expect Me to Believe Everything You Say, Well, Okay

Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe; Notes From a Small Island; The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America by Bill Bryson

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I wasn’t planning to review any of these books. I’ve read them all so many times, and they are all hopelessly outdated, especially Neither Here Nor There and The Lost Continent. These are books that I read and adored when I was younger, that helped me dream about a world outside of the small town I grew up in, and that even led to an aborted solo road trip when I was 21. Reading them after many years away brought back sweet memories, but there’s just not much place for them in 2018. The Lost Continent came first, in the […]

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8/13/2018 's CBR10 Review No:33 |

Stick With This One, It’s Worth It

Never Anyone But You by Rupert Thomson

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This is my first ever experience reading a book before print, and it took a little while for me to get into this one, but once I was in, the payoff was worth it. Never Anyone But You follows Suzanne and Claude (Luci) from falling in love as teenagers in the early 1900s through the many different Paris art movements post World War I, onto their Nazi resistance during World War II, and their final years on the small isle of Jersey. In truth, the first 100 pages of this book were a little rough to find my footing in, and […]

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4/26/2018 's CBR10 Review No:9 |

Just because you can write a 1000 page book doesn’t mean you have to…

El laberinto de los espíritus by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

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El laberinto de los espíritus (literally, The Labyrinth of the Spirits) is the fourth book in the saga of The Cemetery of Forgotten Books by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. This saga started  in 2001 with The Shadow of the Wind, followed by The Angel’s Game and The Prisoner of Heaven. All three books take place in Barcelona, in the aftermath of the Civil War. If you are not familiar with them, I recommend you get your hands on a copy of The Shadow of the Wind ASAP, it’s a beautiful book written by a book lover for book lovers. El laberinto […]

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1/18/2017 's CBR9 Review No:3 |

The reward of true service, surely, is to be asked for more.

League of Dragons: A Novel of Temeraire by Naomi Novik

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At long last, we reach the end of the “Temeraire” series. Hot dang, it’s been 9 books… where would our heroes travel? how would they encounter Napoleon? would Laurence have complicated feelings about women in the military? would Temeraire rake his giant claws into the ground in distress over something? where would they settle down for retirement? all these questions had to be answered, and more! It’s no secret that I’ve adored this series, even though it became deeply repetitive and predictable. And in a surprising twist, this was the least repetitive and predictable of the last several books in the […]

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8/31/2016 's CBR8 Review No:32 |

Never get involved in a land war in Asia

Black Powder War (Temeraire, Book 3) by Naomi Novik

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I will admit, I thought I might be out-smarting these books, with the formula all figured out, but this one, the third in the “Temeraire” series, totally took me on a ride. Delightful, surprising, and exciting. Well played, Novik. Black Powder War bothers with barely any passage of time after Throne of Jade. The company is still in China, preparing for travel back to England, when natural disaster and politics coincide and intervene, causing Laurence and Temeraire to take their scrappy crew of aviators overland towards Istanbul to pick up some dragon eggs that the British government has arranged to […]

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5/22/2016 's CBR8 Review No:18 |

in search of the celestial drug

The Last Opium Den by Nick Tosches

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In my mind exists a temple; a museum of the works of art that helped shape my inner world. Some works are on loan and some are part of the permanent collection. The permanent works that name and sustain me are existentialist: Solomon’s Ecclesiastes, Aurelius’ Meditations, Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, Hendrix’ Axis: Bold as Love, Dylan’s electric Manchester performance, Rippel-Ronai’s Park at Night, the Bhagavad Gita. These are useful for determining how to live authentically and courageously in an unknowable universe. A less obvious addition  to this collection is Tosches’ The Last Opium Den. I found the little gem […]

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12/5/2015 's CBR7 Review No:48 |


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