Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Beauvoir is going to make me lose all of my hair.

The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #8) by Louise Penny

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This was an odd one for sure, but I liked it. And kind of hated it. This is the second of the books to take place mostly absent from Three Pines, this time in a cloistered monastery, that until the murder, had a secret location known only to a few. The monks at Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups belong to a sect formerly believed lost or gone, and their vocation is music. They have recently become world-renowned (and paid for much needed repairs to the abbey) due to a […]

In which I non-review a favorite book.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1) by Stieg Larsson

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Not quite sure what I want to say this go-round. I hate reviewing favorite books. There’s something about the headspace you get in when you’re reading one. It’s just so passive and full of unthinking pleasure. I just let books happen to me when I’m like that. And I don’t want to talk about it okay! It’s private. I loved this book back when I first read it, and then again when I re-read it a couple years later, and now I love it again […]

A trip to the Moor is a trip to Dullsville, unfortunately.

The Moor (Mary Russell, #4) by Laurie R. King

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Three stars is a combo of me not being in the mood and forcing it, and the book being not as good as I wanted it to be. (six months later as I go to actually write this review) No, I’m not even going to make excuses for this. It was very dull! The setting was dull. The mystery was dull. The interactions between Holmes and Mary were dull. Holmes was dull! And the resolution of the mystery did nothing for me. Returning to the […]

The Past Is Not Through With Us

Shadow of a Tiger by Dennis Lynds (Michael Collins)

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The influence of Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer series is what originally drove me to this series. Dan Fortune can kind of be seen as Archer’s east coast counterpart, only he’s missing an arm and we know more about his personal life. In this one, Dennis Lynds (writing under the nom de plume “Michael Collins”) treads familiar territory for both he and his influencer: exploring the dirty deeds of a family. A recurring theme in many of these stories is the past often catches up to us. […]

She has fainted from ill-usage and exhaustion.

Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

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Nope. I think that I can now honestly say that I am not a fan of Sherlock Holmes. Give me all of the re-tellings, please, but spare me the prototype. I tried. I really, really tried. I should not have to try so hard. While I did appreciate A Study in Scarlet, the terrible (and worst book of the year for me) The Sign of Four took way too much time out of my life that I will never get back. Sadly, I am afraid that this gothic […]

Dad Energy

A Ticket to the Boneyard by Lawrence Block

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I try hard to avoid books that are marketed specifically for older white guys. You know the type because they’re everywhere: lone wolf alpha male, usually with some military or police background, goes on the prowl in a specific terrain to vanquish the bad guy in defense of someone, most commonly a woman. Basically, they’re westerns with different topographies. While I’ve occasionally enjoyed the works of authors such as Lee Child, these books really aren’t my thing. Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder series fits the mold […]



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