Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Loss does not go away by ignoring it

The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing by Mira Jacob

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My book group chose this book for January. The group tends to choose lighter reads for our first books of the year. Sleepwalker’s Guide fit the bill. Although it clocks in at almost 500 page it flowed quickly and was an easy read. Amina is a photographer living in Seattle when her mother. Kamala, calls from Albuquerque to tell her that her father has been speaking with dead relatives. Her father, Thomas, is a brain surgeon. Amina thinks her mother might be exaggerating about her […]

Secrets Typed In Blood: The Third Pentecost & Parker Mystery

Secrets Typed In Blood by Stephen Spotswood

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Hello howdy and hey y’all, it’s my first post ever! I love detective stories. I’ve got a brain that enjoys puzzles and being right, so it’s fun on top of fun. But I am also super picky and easily distracted or annoyed by most mysteries. I need a challenge but not something so convoluted it’s unsolvable. I don’t want anything too cozy or too grim, nothing with lots of graphic violence/mutilation/torture but a decent amount of action. I prefer women authors and characters, I like […]

Do You Hear What I Hear? and if Not, So?

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

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When does a book become real? And for that matter, what is real? These questions run through Ruth Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness as the main character, Benny, fourteen years old, struggles with the death of his father, adolescence and the voices of inanimate objects that he cannot shut out. The story is told by Benny, and also a book. The book not only narrates Benny’s story, but talks with Benny directly, or talks directly to the reader pontificating on books, the art […]

despair and disorientation

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri

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3.75 stars Nuri and Afra are Syrian refugees trying to make their way to England, where Nuri’s cousin, who also fled Syria, awaits them. They’ve suffered a loss that’s left Afra blind and functionally paralyzed with grief. This grief is like a tangible thing Nuri has to negotiate while at the same time trying to persuade her to leave, and also to keep from her as much as possible the level of danger they’re in by staying. Their PTSD, despair, and loss of hope have […]

Charming start to CBR15

Snowdrift and Other Stories by Georgette Heyer

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I found this collection thanks to one of the many articles that pop up in my social media recommending various types of book to me. I can’t remember what the list was (I think it was some sort of recommendations from the New York Public Library), but given last month’s arrival of snowstorm Elliot plus the overwhelming amount of holiday stuff I had to do, a collection of short stories set in the Regency period seemed like a fun diversion. And it absolutely was! If […]

You know how you can make it up to me? MURDER

The Bridesmaid by Ruth Rendell

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3.5 stars I’ve read and enjoyed quite a few books by Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, so this caught my eye. Philip is an absolutely run-of-the-mill man: decent looking, recently out of college, working in a field he pretty much likes and with dreams of bigger things, living with his mom and sister, just out of a relationship because he wasn’t ready to/couldn’t commit as fully as his ladyfriend wanted him to. You know, regular guy. His relationships with his mom and two sisters — all of […]



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