Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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“…the smaller the space between your desire and what is right, the happier you will be.”

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

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My husband and I were married in 2022. We decided to both read a book in honor of our anniversary. We would pick the book together, finding something that reminded us of the past year. So far we’ve picked books based on places that we’ve traveled. The first year we had vacationed in Florida, and we picked Swamplandia!. It was well written and memorable, but it was also weird and disturbing. This year, we were lucky enough to go to Italy, and after some google searches, […]

Taking a Triple Cannonball into the Rising Sea Level!

The Way the World Ends by Jess Walter

Boca Raton by Lauren Groff

Controller by Jesse Kellerman

There's No Place Like Home by Edan Lepucki

Falls the Shadow by Skip Horack

The Hillside by Jane Smiley

At the Bottom of New Lake by Sonya Larson

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Is it hot in here, or is it just these stories? oh, the temperature is definitely rising folks, from GLOBAL WARMING! I struggle with looking climate change in the face; I am concerned, I am trying to do my part, but the onslaught of facts is just too depressing. Climate-change based fiction, though, clicks in a way that I was not expecting. I suppose there is a level of empathy that transcends the “just the facts” nature of the news when the same information is […]

Eight things I hated about this book and one thing I liked

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

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CBR11bingo: Pajiba BINGO: Remix, PAJIBA, Two Heads Are Better Than One, I LOVE THIS, Cannonballer Says In 1962, a boat arrives at Porto Vergogna on the Italian coast carrying Dee Moray, a dying actress. The beautiful young woman is greeted by Pasquale Tursi, the (even younger) owner of the only hotel in the tiny village. Over just a few days, the pair, one American and one Italian, form a deep emotional connection. Circumstances keep them apart until, fifty years later, Pasquale sets off to find […]

Tony, informed, said: They love funerals.

The New York Stories of Elizabeth Hardwick by Elizabeth Hardwick

We Live In Water by Jess Walter

Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk

Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk

Goodbye Mr. Chips by James Hilton

Lyra's Oxford by Philip Pullman

Elementals by AS Byatt

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New York Stories – 4/5 Stars I read Elizabeth Hardwick’s collected essays earlier this year. I also read her novel Sleepless Nights last year. This is a collection of stories that encompasses about 45-50 years worth of short stories edited and selected by Darryl Pinckney, another novelist and critic who also famously worked with and was friends with Hardwick. I read these stories in a variety of orders, and since they are not part of an intentional collection this blending and mixing up of the […]

“His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.”

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I’ll start this review by giving particular props to the narration on the audiobook. As a newcomer to the world of audiobooks, Beautiful Ruins earned the distinction of being the first where I can honestly say the audio narration elevated the reading/listening experience and did more than just get the job done. I was not surprised when I learned that it won an award for the format in its year of eligibility. So good on you, Edoardo Ballerini. The story is one of those where […]

An Adequate View

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I…kind of liked this book. It was…okay. Overall, the annoying/dull parts ended up getting balanced with the interesting parts, so it kind of ended up being average. Appropriate for a novel where one of the main characters owns a hotel called “The Adequate View”. “Then she smiled, and in that instant, if such a thing were possible, Pasquale fell in love, and he would remain in love for the rest of his life–not so much with the woman, whom he didn’t even know, but with the moment.” A lot happens […]



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