Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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You can hate the heroine; don’t hate the novel

Atonement by Ian McEwan

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CBR11bingo: History/Schmistory (historical fiction) BINGO: Two Heads Are Better Than One, Back to School, Own Voices, Classics, History/Schmistory While having lunch with a friend recently, we started talking about books and he mentioned that he doesn’t have any use for novels that are “about writing.” On reflection, I realized I am often quite taken with novels that could be classified as metafiction (The Magpie Murders, The Word is Murder/The Sentence is Death, and, going all the way back to CBR V, The Tragedy of Arthur). So […]

“The particular power of the whodunnit” multiplied by 2

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

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CBR11bingo: Cannonballer Says Not long ago I announced that I had “discovered” Anthony Horowitz. What I failed to mention is that what first put him on my radar was a review by badkittyuno of the sensational meta-mystery Magpie Murders. At the time, I noted, “This sounds right up my alley!” and yes, indeed, it was. This is the fourth novel by Horowitz that I’ve read, yet somehow he continues to exceed my expectations. Magpie Murders begins with Susan Ryeland, Head of Fiction at Cloverleaf Books, sitting […]

I go down into black water. It is dark and silent, but not — never, any more — deserted.

Gnomon by Nick Harkaway

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After a bit of a slow start to the year, my reading took off. I finished seven books in three weeks and started to entertain the possibility of an elusive Double Cannonball. Then two things happened: I found a renewed sense of dedication and spent more of my time actually writing — FINALLY — and I also decided it was time to tackle Nick Harkaway’s monster of a book, Gnomon. Farewell, Double Cannonball. Maybe someday . . . In the not-too-distant future the UK has […]



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