Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Let’s Keep This Conclave Ragin’ Bros!

Conclave by Robert Harris

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Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: detente. A cardinal attempts to keep peace while the church world is suspended over who will be the next Pope, despite shenanigans happening on the side. Also, shoutout to Spencer Hall, whose tweet eleven years ago still makes me laugh and is the title for this review. When I saw the trailer for Conclave, I knew I would be reading the book it was based on no matter what. I have mixed feelings on Robert Harris’ books but they […]

February-March 2024 Leftovers

The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors by Dan Jones

A Lowcountry Bride by Preslaysa Williams

Bone White by Ronald Malfi

Alexander the Great by Phillip Freeman

Nero: Matricide, Murder and Music in Imperial Rome by Anthony Everitt and Roddy Ashworth

Beyond a Boundary by C.L.R. James

A Stab in the Dark by Lawrence Block

The Killing Kind by John Connolly

Shōgun by James Clavell

Nobody's Angel by Jack Clark

A Murder in Hollywood: The Untold Story of Tinseltown's Most Shocking Crime by Casey Sherman

Village in the Dark by Iris Yamashita

Nestlings by Nat Cassidy

Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic by Tom Holland

The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age by Michael Woolraich

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Rain, rain, go away. I thought my reading count looked too low and then I realized I didn’t do leftovers for February, so here’s Feb-March combined. The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and Rise of the Tudors ***** Jones is such a talented historian. Gets all the important stuff of the Wars of the Roses in great detail and lets the story entertain. His Templars book will soon be on my radar. A Lowcountry Bride**** Had to read this for a library […]

Empress

Agrippina: The Most Extraordinary Woman of the Roman World by Emma Southon

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Happy Women’s History Month! What better way to observe it than celebrating the most powerful woman in Roman history? I’ve read a lot of books on the Julio-Claudians recently and this is probably the best. Maybe not even “probably.” Emma Southon does a great job explaining how Agrippina’s life was the fabric that wove the narrative of the dynasty together. She was born the year after Augustus’ death and she died during the reign of her son, the last of the family line. She held […]

Behind the Throne

Emperor of Rome by Mary Beard

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A few months ago, there was a meme going around asking folks how much they thought about the Roman Empire. Rome has been kind of a curiosity to a whole subset of men this generation. As sea levels rise, fascism marches, and prices gouge, men tend to be more conservative and look to the “old ways.” They conveniently leave out the fact that homosexuality was widely practiced, as well as a fact that their odds of being a slave were substantively higher than being a […]

Women In Power

The Great Mrs. Elias by Barbara Chase-Riboud

Domina: The Women Who Made Imperial Rome by Guy de la Bédoyère

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Over the week, I read two great accountings of women in power in very different contexts. It felt natural to include them both in one review. The Great Mrs. Elias **** I knew very little about Hannah Davis going into this, which helped as it read like a page-turner. Barbara Chase-Riboud does a great job in story form of presenting Hannah’s plight and the tough choices she had to make. The dialogue could’ve used some sprucing up, but otherwise, I really enjoyed this quality work of […]

“There is more history in a bowl of pasta than in the Colosseum”

Dinner in Rome: A History of the World in One Meal by Andreas Viestad

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I love Italian food (well, I am Italian).  I love history. I loved visiting Rome. Put that all together and you get Dinner in Rome – A history of the world in one meal by Andreas Vestad. This book was originally published in Vestad’s native language, Norwegian, but I am glad somebody thought it worthy of releasing in English in the US. The premise is very simple. Vestad sits down to a meal at his favorite restaurant in Rome. As he eats, he explores the […]



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