Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time
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Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

“What redemption there is in being loved: we are always our best selves when loved by another.”

This Must Be The Place by Maggie O'Farrell

December 22, 2022 by booktrovert Leave a Comment

This was a lovely novel. the sort of story that feels very comforting, even as it is at turns heartbreaking. Daniel Sullivan meets Claudette Wells almost on accident, and this is the story of their marriage. He is an American linguist with Irish roots and a penchant for studying abroad. She is a British movie star of immense fame, who tired of her life in the limelight. Both have rather significant pasts before they meet each other at a crossroads in Ireland – but once […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Maggie O'Farrell

Genres: Fiction · Tags: Maggie O'Farrell ·
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“… slipping through loopholes, unaware of when the axe may fall.”

I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O'Farrell

December 18, 2022 by booktrovert Leave a Comment

Maggie O’Farrell is a gifted writer – and someone who has been quite lucky to evade death on multiple occasions. In this memoir, O’Farrell takes 17 incidents where she or her children come close death – through anaphylaxis, encephalitis, rash decisions made in youth or even  later, as a parent. She explores how each occasion gave her insight into her own mortality, and what it meant for her as a person. When she wrote this book, she was around the age I am now, in […]

Filed Under: Biography/Memoir Tagged With: Maggie O'Farrell

booktrovert's CBR14 Review No:121 · Genres: Biography/Memoir · Tags: Maggie O'Farrell ·
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“What do you read, my lord?” “Words, words, words.”

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

March 15, 2022 by jeverett15 Leave a Comment

Considering how much intrigue and debate there still is about Williams Shakespeare, arguably the most famous writer of all time, its not surprising that there is even less verified information about his relations. That Shakespeare was married and had three children is well-known, as is the sad fact of his only son’s passing at a young age, but their lives and personalities are largely a mystery. Into this void steps Maggie O’Farrell with her novel Hamnet. In the absence of documentary fact, O’Farrell feels free […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Maggie O'Farrell

jeverett15's CBR14 Review No:11 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Maggie O'Farrell ·
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A novel of grief

Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague by Maggie O’Farrell

January 1, 2021 by ElCicco 6 Comments

This could very well end up as one of my favorites for 2021. O’Farrell’s novel imagines the death of William Shakespeare’s young son Hamnet and the grief the envelops the family as a result. I could not put this book down, it is so beautifully written and heart wrenching. While Shakespeare is a character in the novel (never named but obviously him), the main character is Agnes, his wife and mother to Hamnet, Hamnet’s twin Judith and Susannah. It is mainly through her eyes that […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: CBR13, ElCicco, Fiction, Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell, Shakespeare

ElCicco's CBR13 Review No:2 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: CBR13, ElCicco, Fiction, Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell, Shakespeare ·
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· 6 Comments

I Can’t Tell One From Another

This Must Be The Place by Maggie O'Farrell

December 7, 2020 by octothorp Leave a Comment

Did I buy this book because I’ve read Maggie O’Farrell before and generally liked her work? Sure. Did I REALLY buy this book because it was a buck at Goodwill and quoted the Talking Heads? Yeah, that’s the main reason. I didn’t even judge a book by its cover, I judged it by the title. This is why I have something like 200 unread books in my house. I have a problem. Anyway, this sort of felt a bit like The Vanishing Act of Esme […]

Filed Under: Fiction Tagged With: Maggie O'Farrell

octothorp's CBR12 Review No:127 · Genres: Fiction · Tags: Maggie O'Farrell ·
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Almost wasn’t

I am, I am, I am by Maggie o’Farrell

June 15, 2019 by octothorp Leave a Comment

Man, life is so flipping fragile it’s a wonder any of us survive past infancy. I work at a children’s hospital and see all the ways that one gene flips or one chromosome is duplicated or deleted and suddenly bam, your lifespan goes from 75 to 14, so I have always been acutely aware of this fact (I was real fun during pregnancy, trust me). My problem is I see the race as having been won. I’ve made it this far and so I’m safe, […]

Filed Under: Biography/Memoir Tagged With: Maggie O'Farrell

octothorp's CBR11 Review No:43 · Genres: Biography/Memoir · Tags: Maggie O'Farrell ·
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