Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Dead men don’t bite

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

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So my prevailing question through a lot of this novel was: is the most concentrated usage of pirate tropes, or, did this book invent all of those pirate tropes? And I think the answer is probably a little in the middle, but it’s interesting because this book feels like THE pirate book. And it’s kind of barely about pirates really. What I mean by this, is that this book more than anything else is a book about a mutiny. Yes, there’s a parrot who sings “Sixteen men on a dead man’s chest” and yes there’s a buried treasure quest and […]

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1/12/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:13 |

He Would Name His Parrot After Captain Flint, Wouldn’t He?

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

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Just as a number of readers before me have also done, I came to read Treasure Island after recently flying through the tv series Black Sails (I wasn’t sure about it at first, but I quickly came around and loved it by the end), which is a prequel to the classic novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. Although, I didn’t realize this for quite an embarrassingly long time, but then, all my previous engagement with the story has been in the form of The Muppets adaptation or Disney’s Treasure Planet: I thought it was just generic and well-known pirate names being […]

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6/27/2018 's CBR10 Review No:31 |

Yo ho, Yo ho, A Pirate’s Life For Me

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

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I decided to read Treasure Island after I finished the STARS show Black Sails, because I really enjoyed the show and wanted to read the book they got their inspiration from. To be fair, most pirate fiction probably gets their inspiration from this book, but the show actually used characters from the book to tell their story. And so that is why I struggled through this book for four months. I feel like I’ve lost my reading mojo, because I just couldn’t push past the language to get to the story. Still for starting, or at least defining, a genre […]

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1/8/2018 's CBR10 Review No:2 |

Ya wee scunner, if it’s nae Scottish it’s crap!

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

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The nice thing about living with another book lover is that when I’m between books and want to pick up something to read, I can just peruse the shelves, and I’m sure to find something new. The upside is this can lead me to discover books I would probably never have sought out on my own. The downside is my options are often limited and are heavily weighted towards nautical fiction and British history. So recently when I was trying to decide on what new adventure I should embark, I saw Kidnapped and thought, “Robert Louis Stevenson, classic, adventure story, […]

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12/9/2017 's CBR9 Review No:23 |

Good Year for the Roses

The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson

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This is what in less P.C. days would be called a boys’ book. It’s a tale of outlaws and adventures, bravery and chivalry, fair maidens and feats of strength. Set in the midst of The Wars of the Roses, Robert Louis Stevensons’s episodic novel follows young Dick Shelton, a ward of the lord of his manor who comes to be torn between his various loyalties in an uncertain time. Shelton has been under the protection of Sir Daniel since the death of his own father when he was a lad. Sir Daniel is a politically calculating figure, switching allegiances freely […]

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8/29/2016 's CBR8 Review No:35 |

Here, Have a Black Spot.

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

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When I first read Treasure Island, I was living in Georgia’s low country, an area embroiled in pirate history (in fact, the Benbow Inn is rumored to have been modeled on Savannah’s Pirate House).  I like my reading to provide a little bit of local color. Anyway, perhaps it was my own location that made it easy to fall into Stevenson’s world. I can understand how Jim Hawkins might feel every time his little world is intruded upon by a pirate, those dual senses of danger and thrill, and how those emotions both might appeal to a kid like Jim […]

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3/14/2016 's CBR8 Review No:6 |

Love, Travel and Illness: Louis and Fanny

Under the Wide and Starry Sky by Nancy Horan

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Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne has packed up her children and moved from San Francisco to Europe to get away from her philandering husband. While she is in France, she meets and eventually develops a relationship with Robert Louis Stevenson, a man ten years her junior, who will become famous as the author of pieces such Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (unfortunately, that’s the only thing of his I’ve read). Their life and their relationship ends up being very determined by his poor health as they spend much of their time traveling in search of the proper […]

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4/25/2014 's CBR6 Review No:32 |


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