Cannonball Read 14

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Saints! Soldiers! Sorcery! Swords! Swooning!

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold

Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold

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It’s time for me to FINNALY go all-in on some good old fashioned FAN TA SY. Normally, these are the sort of books that I pick up in the bookstore, give a “hmm” at the cover, and keep walking. I’ve never been great at immersing myself in fantasy worlds outside of the big-names; I just don’t have a memory for the complex lore and histories of most fantasy epics. When I open up a book and it starts with breakdowns of family names and maps […]

Two Entirely Different Kinds of Pirates

Pirate Queen: A Story of Zheng Yi Sao by Helaine Becker, Ill. Liz Wong

What Isabella Wanted: Isabella Stewart Gardner Builds a Museum by Candace Fleming Ill. Matthew Cordell

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But Fortune cares nothing for your dreams. She takes up your life in her cup and shakes it so hard your teeth rattle in your head and your heart roars like a dragon in your chest. Then she throws the bones onto her table of lacquer and jade. Your fate is sealed. – Helaine Becker, Pirate Queen: A Story of Zheng Yi Sao Did I know much about Zheng Yi Sao before I read this? Only that she existed, reigned over the South China Sea […]

If you knew how your actions affected others, would you change them?

An Inspector Calls and Other Plays by JB Priestley

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An Inspector Calls and Other Plays contains, as you might have guessed, An Inspector Calls as well as Time and the Conways, I Have Been Here Before, and the Linden Tree. Of the collection, An Inspector Calls stands head and shoulders above the rest but they are all of a high standard. Time and the Conways and I Have Been Here Before both deal with time, fate and free will, but of the two I definitely enjoyed the latter the most. The former sees us […]

you will falsely remember being told about Melmoth by your grandmother’s mother when you were very small

Melmoth by Sarah Perry

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There is something immediately nauseating – hear me out- about this book. You can be nauseous when you feel ill, when you ride a roller coaster, when you are nervous, or when you eat too many sweets. There is a feeling of hopeful dread that climbs over you (and all of the characters within) before you have finished reading the first page. There is a feeling that you have been here – in a cafe in Prague, under an overpass in Manila, in a field […]

To Make a Thing as Simple as an Apple Pie, You have to Create the Whole, Wide World

The Sun is also a Star by Nicola Yoon

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During this last post-election month, I feel like my emotions are out of control and too close to the surface.  Case in point, I was doing a first listen of my copy of the Hamilton Mix-Tape the other morning while making breakfast and basically was misty eyed during the whole first half.  Songs about immigrants and rising up and writing your way out of bad circumstances hit close to home (and I’m a middle-aged white lady so I can only imagine how this CD resonates […]

Fate is a Funny Thing

Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner

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This latest novel by Jennifer Weiner was thoroughly readable and engaging as long as I squashed my inner cynic into a small ball and buried it deep in a drawer.  It tells the story of Rachel Blum and Andy Landis, who first meet when they are 8 years old.  Rachel is in a Florida hospital being treated for a heart condition that she has struggled with since birth.  Andy ends up in the E.R. of the same hospital with a broken arm. The accident happened […]



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