Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

“For better or worse” sometimes means being lost at sea for 117 days with each other.

A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst

by Leave a Comment

I am attempting this year to read more non-fiction, so I picked this one up mostly because Barack Obama told me to.  Maralyn and Maurice were a bit of an odd couple (he was many years her senior, and a bit of a recluse; she was a young and beautiful dynamo) who married in the late 60s/early 70s in small town UK. They both wanted more adventure, so they began sailing. In 1973, they sold their house, finished building their yacht, and set out on […]

The Wager by David Grann

The Wager; A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

by Leave a Comment

Format in which I consumed this book: audiobook Did I like it/love it/hate it? Liked it What’s it about? In the 1740s, a British ship sets sail to try to capture a Spanish galleon filled with treasure. They fail, and become shipwrecked on an island near Argentina and Chile. In the months that follow, the crew and leadership divide into factions and struggle to survive. They manage to scavenge items from their ship and the author sort of makes it seem like they had a […]

Lord of the Flies with Adults

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

by 3 Comments

CBR16 BINGO: Fiasco, because this mission to capture Spanish treasure was a fiasco from the get-go I’ve been putting off writing this review because, while The Wager seems to have been well researched and the writing is engaging, it left me feeling a bit tepid. Nautical history isn’t my usual jam, but I do love a good survival story (see Endurance for my favorite nautical tale and one of my all-time favorite non-fiction books). In the mid-18th century, Britain and Spain were engaged in the […]

July 2022 Leftovers

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

From Crook to Cook: Platinum Recipies from Tha Boss Dogg's Kitchen by Snoop Dogg

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene

Plunder of the Sun by David Dodge

Stunt: A Mythical Reimagining of Nellie Jackson, Madame of Natchez by Saida Agostini

The Last Pirate of New York: A Ghost Ship, A Killer, and the Birth of a Gangster Nation by Rich Cohen

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

Defender of the Innocent: The Casebook Files of Martin Ehrengraf by Lawrence Block

Voluntary Madness by Vicki Hendricks

Two Gentlemen of Lebowski: A Most Excellent Comedie and Tragic Romance by Adam Bertocci

The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor by Gabriel García Márquez

A Night to Remember by Walter Lord

Slonim Woods 9: A Memoir by Daniel Barban Levin

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

My Summer Darlings by May Cobb

The Cat Who Saved Books by Sōsuke Natsukawa

Firestarter by Stephen King

The Editor by Steven Rowley

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

Crossroad Blues by Ace Atkins

Lucky by Jackie Collins

by 2 Comments

Here are reviews for the books I read in July that I didn’t have time or energy to do a full review on. Note: I was out of work in July so I read a lot. The Woman in Cabin 10 *** Read this while on a cruise ship and it definitely gave me some interesting feelings! A relatively entertaining thriller. I’d read another Ruth Ware book but wouldn’t rush out to do so From Crook to Cook: Platinum Recipes From Tha Boss Dogg’s Kitchen**** […]

My, what big teeth you have.

by Leave a Comment

The inimitable H.G. Wells, from 1895-98, wrote The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, and War of the Worlds. That’s an unbelievable concentration of brilliance that I can’t find in another writer. Someone like Stephen King has written numerous works that will (or have already) become classics of their genre, but they’re spread out over a career (for instance, 1978’s The Stand followed hot on the heels of 1977’s The Shining, but Misery came out in 1987 and The Green Mile […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo