Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Horror Month 2023: #10

Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon

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This was the kind of book I was hoping to discover when giving Horror Month a shot. It’s not the best book I’ve read this year, nor even this month. But it’s the kind of thing I was hoping to read: quality psychological horror that is beyond the mainstream. Getting this rec from Max Read’s substack was a gift. It was a delight to pour through Tryon’s rich language as he slowly but surely developed the characters, parceling out horror bit-by-bit until the big reveals, […]

“You kids are different from the farm animals who have no way out. Running away in order to live is fine. Perfectly fine.”

Silver Spoon Vol. 1-15 by Hiromu Arakawa

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CBR14Bingo: Series (it’s a series) This is one of my favorite manga series and one I was re-reading again just out of a desire to read something cheerful and warm-hearted. Silver Spoon is by the same author as Fullmetal Alchemist, her much more famous work. It follows Yuugo Hachiken, who decides to go to an agricultural high school in rural Hokkaido because he hit a plateau in mainstream academia and was pushing himself so hard to succeed that he’d lost all enjoyment in life. By going […]

Heartland – Heartbreaking and thoughtful in America’s Heartland

Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh

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This is yet another great read I “discovered” via ANUW, the Association of Northwestern University Women book club that I am a member of, by way of my employment at Northwestern University. I was a little leery, as last year the book club selections were pretty heavy to include J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. At first thought, his book has many parallels to hers, so I wasn’t that interested in reading more of the same. Vance of Elegy grew up in rural Appalachia and details the […]

My annoyance with Jefferson continues

Founding Gardners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation by Andrea Wulf

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What can the founding fathers’ gardens tell you about them and early America? According to Andrea Wulf everything! Taking what could be a dry topic, Wulf digs into the botanical side of history to show how the farms and gardens of each of the founding fathers were microcosms of how they wished to shape America. Washington, the reluctant general and post-war president, focuses on popularizing native species and developing a distinctly American farm. Jefferson loves the theory of planning an elaborate plantation but struggles with […]

Slow Food. Any idea what I am talking about?

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This book came across my radar as it was the January pick for the Slow Food Chicago Book Club. I’ll let the Slow Food International website speak for itself: “Slow Food is a global, grassroots organization, founded in 1989 to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the rise of fast life and combat people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how our food choices affect the world around us.”  In sum, Slow Food is the […]

A contemporary romance with a lot of produce puns

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Wanting to prove to herself that she can manage on her own, Roxie Callahan moved all the way across the country, away from her somewhat flakey, alternative diner-managing mother and her constant string of usually unhappy infatuations. Roxie has put herself through culinary school and is working hard to establish herself as a private chef to wealthy Hollywood wives. But when a moment of distraction means she screws up with a very important client, it seems as if most of her client base are happy […]



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