Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Gentle Heroine Navigates Catastrophe

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

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Bingo: Refuge. The main character Anna serves as a refuge to others in times of hardship. My dad likes to poke fun at my tendency to read about heavy topics. When I told him I was reading a book about the plague, he thought it was par for the course. But as horrifying as the Black Plague was, Year of Wonders manages to be a beautiful tale of resilience, care, and healing. Which is not to say it’s a light book, but it is a […]

Surprisingly memorable and moving

Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks

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I saw Memorial Days (2025) by Geraldine Brooks on a number of year-end lists. I wasn’t sure I wanted to read a book about grief, but there was something about the description that made me want to give it a try. This was my first book by Brooks, but I really enjoyed her writing. I thought she was honest, vulnerable, and insightful. On May 27, 2019, Brook’s husband and partner of over thirty years, Tony Horwitz, collapsed and died on a sidewalk in DC, where he was […]

“…a racehorse is a mirror, and a man sees his own reflection there. He wants to think he’s from the best breeding. He wants to think himself brave. Can he win against all comers? And if not, does he have self-mastery to take a loss, stay cool in defeat, and try again undaunted? Those are the qualities of a great racehorse and a great gentleman.”

Horse by Geraldine Brooks

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I didn’t realize I could or would enjoy a book about horse racing, but here we are! I’m a bit bummed I missed my library book club meeting about this book because it would be fascinating for a discussion. In 2019, a master’s student of art finds a painting of a horse in his neighbor’s trash pile by the side of the road. He is intrigued and takes it to see what he can learn about it. Maybe it can be part of his thesis? […]

Hello Mudder

Horse by Geraldine Brooks

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Horse unfolds in three parallel narratives spanning three centuries. In the 19th century, an enslaved man learns the art of training a horse from his free father and goes on to a long association with the greatest racehorse of his era, the legendary Lexington. In the 20th Century, an influential art dealer known for her work with abstract painters takes an unlikely interest in a painting of Lexington done by a minor artist. And in 2019, an art historian and a scientist find themselves drawn […]

Race/Horse

Horse: A Novel by Geraldine Brooks

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Cbr14bingo Time, Bingo #2 (down) This novel is set in three distinct time periods linked by a Civil War era thoroughbred named Lexington As far as I’m concerned Geraldine Brooks is one of the best historical fiction writers out there. I have read all of her novels. March won the Pulitzer Prize. Caleb’s Crossing, People of the Book, and Year of Wonder: A Novel of the Plague were all outstanding. I felt that The Secret Chord, her previous novel, was not quite up to snuff, […]

Kind of a disappointment

The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks

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I love historical fiction and Geraldine Brooks has been one of my favorite writers in this genre. I have now officially read all of her novels. The Secret Chord (2015) is about one of the most famous men in history, King David. Very little factual information exists about him, and in this novel, Brooks imagines his rise to power and rule through the eyes of his advisor/seer, the prophet Natan. Natan has witnessed David’s ruthlessness firsthand, but he also senses David’s strong connection to the […]



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