Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

This made me track down a movie I loved as a kid about a polar bear that was totally based on Cupid and Psyche.

Mythology by Edith Hamilton

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This is one of those books you hear about and then buy in a used bookstore and it languishes on your bookshelves for years until you finally pick it up, and then you just end up thinking to yourself, why didn’t I pick this up sooner? Only, it’s also one of those books that really works better as a reference than as a book you sit down and read from cover to cover. I read this book over the course of most of February, in […]

With a nibble here and a nibble there, here a nibble there a nibble….

A Big Mooncake for Little Star by Grace Lin

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A Big Mooncake for Little Star is very clever. And while it is not based in an actual myth, Grace Lin has made a story that has that feeling of Asian mythology.  Her amazing illustrations make this a sweet bedtime story, but also it is the perfect anytime story. Of course, it is meant to be a bedtime.  These illustrations are detailed, but in a very simplicity manner. The placing of color also is strategic and moves the story forward. And while this is a […]

Everybody please read this so I can have somebody to talk to about it.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf (The Dark Star Trilogy, #1) by Marlon James

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NB: I received a gratis copy of the book from the publisher but that has not affected the content of my review. “You want to know what’s my purpose? To kill the men who killed my brother and father, leaving a grandfather fucking my own mother. To kill the men who killed my brother, because they killed him because he killed one of theirs. Who killed one of his, who killed one of theirs, and on and on while even gods die. My purpose is […]

In the Style of the Greeks

Mythos by Stephen Fry

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I think the title of this book and the name of the author tell you a lot about this book right from the start. It’s Stephen Fry telling you the Greek myths. And it does feel like he’s telling them to you. His tone is very Stephen-Fry-y and his style is direct, dryly witty, and interested. His love of alliteration does show up. “Her lines were sweepingly, swoopingly, swooningly smooth, supple, and sensuous.”— Galatea and Pygmalion If you’re very familiar with Greek Mythology, If you’re […]

you will falsely remember being told about Melmoth by your grandmother’s mother when you were very small

Melmoth by Sarah Perry

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There is something immediately nauseating – hear me out- about this book. You can be nauseous when you feel ill, when you ride a roller coaster, when you are nervous, or when you eat too many sweets. There is a feeling of hopeful dread that climbs over you (and all of the characters within) before you have finished reading the first page. There is a feeling that you have been here – in a cafe in Prague, under an overpass in Manila, in a field […]

Imagine a Studio Ghibli film as an 80s novel

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The Nargun and the Stars won a Hans Christian Andersen medal, I’m assuming sometime in the seventies when it first came out.  My copy is the 1988 reprint and you can really tell based on the cover.  I can’t remember at all why and where I picked this up, but I’d bet it was because of the title, not the cover art.  Post-reading, I am, as usual, mostly bugged by the inaccuracies.  Oh well. So, based on the title, I’d have guessed this book would […]



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