Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search this Site

Hippos of the Deep South

American Hippo by Sarah Gailey

by Leave a Comment

In a world where the American Hippo bill passed (look it up, it was real!) and the vast Mississippi became the home of deadly feral hippo, Winslow Houndstooth and a crew of rogues, murderers, and con artists have been contracted to take it back. This book consists of the novellas River of Teeth and Taste of Marrow and two additional short stories, which all take place in this alternate United States and follow Winslow and his motley crew of hippo riders. Firstly, I love hippos, I love the idea of […]

“If I were to live here in Cardiff, by the sea, I think that another self would emerge in me. My soul.”

Cardiff, By the Sea by Joyce Carol Oates

by Leave a Comment

Joyce Carol Oates presents four uneasy novellas of suspense, all of which are centered around a woman in peril, often from the male forces in her life. Cardiff, by the Sea – 3.5 stars Clare, an academic who was adopted as a toddler, returns to her unknown past when she unexpectedly inherits a house from her birth grandmother, but what she learns about her birth family leaves her unmoored. I loved the prose in this novella (as I did in all of them), as well […]

It’s hard to resist a book with a cat on the cover

We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida

by Leave a Comment

I’m probably late to the trend (I usually am), but I hadn’t noticed until fairly recently how many books written in Japan center around cats. Last year, I read the touching If Cats Disappeared from the World, and the surprisingly comforting Blanket Cats. The disappointing Before the Coffee Gets Cold did not include a cat, but it should have, and I think the publishers knew it needed one because they put a cat on the cover. Anyway, I’m continuing the trend in 2026 with a […]

Prolonging my time in the Cold Magic world with short stories and essays

The World Begins in Ice by Kate Elliott

by Leave a Comment

I first learned about Kate Elliott’s Cold Magic series while reading John Scalzi’s website.  In the Big Idea section Elliott described what The History of the World Begins in Ice is all about.  It is a collection of short stories written in the “Spiritwalker Trilogy” as well as essays about the characters and aspects of the world.  The trilogy sounded fascinating, to quote Kate: When I began writing Cold Magic, my primary goal (besides making it shorter than Traitors’ Gate) was to tell a story that would […]

A soldier’s diary from the front lines of seasonal employment

Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris

by Leave a Comment

My costume is green. I wear green velvet knickers, a yellow turtleneck, a forest-green velvet smock, and a perky stocking cap decorated with spangles. This is my work uniform. ― David Sedaris, Holidays on Ice I’ve read this, listened to the public radio broadcast of David Sedaris’s reading, and I’ve seen a performance of The Santaland Diaries. It’s been a while, so this was a fun yet illuminating reread. David is a thirty-three-year-old man hired to be an elf at Santaland in at Macy’s in […]

The Bloody Chamber

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

by 2 Comments

I recently decided to re-read The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (it was my choice for my book group). It was as fun as I remembered. Carter’s sexy takes on traditional fairy tales like “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Sleeping Beauty” and “Puss in Boots” is at times over-the-top in its prose, humor, and horror – which suits her feminist takes on damsels in all sorts of distress perfectly. She delivers a great vampire tale, “The Lady of the House of Love,” too.  But I think […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo