Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

There goes the maddest woman this town has ever seen

The Sicilian Inheritance by Jo Piazza

by Leave a Comment

This was a book club selection for me – while it definitely is the kind of thing I enjoy (hello, Kate Morton novels), this one wouldn’t have been on my radar at all. The novel alternates chapters between Sara, a chef in Philadelphia with a failed restaurant and a failed marriage, and her great-grandmother Serafina, a young mother in early 20th century Sicily (spanning 1908-1925 to be exact). Sara’s beloved great-aunt Rosie has died and part of her last will is to send Sara off […]

The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind small

Zanzara by Gloria Vitanza Basile

by 2 Comments

Born in poverty and raised in a squalid orphanage, Phaedra’s life transforms completely when her identity as a prince’s illegitimate daughter is revealed, vaunting her into the lap of luxury. But she has a long, tough path to tread still before she will reach her happy ending. I really, really love the crazy bloody bodice rippers of the 1970s and 80s. They are always wild and adventurous, often with a strong historical grounding, and take you careening through the kind of heroine’s journey that leave […]

September 2023 Leftovers

Ex Machina, Book Five by Brian K. Vaughan

Windfall by Wendy Corsi Staub

The Big Bundle by Max Allan Collins

The Snack Thief by Andrea Camilleri

Guts and Genius: The Story of Three Unlikely Coaches Who Came to Dominate the NFL in the '80s by Bob Glauber

by Leave a Comment

Let’s please do something about climate change before it’s too late. I miss fall. And far more importantly: people’s lives are at stake. Ex Machina Book Five **** Mixed feelings on how this series ended. I think in many respects, the superhero stuff was handled better than the political angle through most of its run. That’s not something I thought I’d be saying after the first book. Making Mayor Hundred a contrarian centrist type was uninspired back then and comes off as even more annoying […]

August 2023 Leftovers

Red Cat by Peter Spiegelman

You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters by Kate Murphy

Gangland by Chuck Hogan

Death and the Good Life by Richard Hugo

You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Alexa Coe

Britt-Marie Was Here by Frederik Backman

Occupied City by David Peace

Sleepless City by Reed Farrel Coleman

Bad Summer People by Emma Rosenblum

Run Time by Cathy Ryan Howard

Loyalty by Lisa Scottoline

None Of This Is True by Lisa Jewell

The Club by Ellery Lloyd

Not in Bronxville by Rita K. Farrelly

by Leave a Comment

Unquestionably the worst month in the calendar. Red Cat*** It’s not the writer’s fault that I just finished Robert Kolker’s excellent Lost Girls in light of the apprehension of the man they think is the Gilgo Beach murderer. But my threshold for murdered sex workers was low going into this. I only finished it because it filled a specific square for my library summer reading game. It’s not bad; the mystery is done well but it doesn’t stand out as far as the rest of […]

March 2023 Leftovers

The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion by Eliot Brown, Maureen Farrell

The Terra-Cotta Dog by Andrea Cammalleri

Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson

Tina, Mafia Soldier by Maria Rosa Cutrufelli

The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz

An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President's Murder by Susan Wels

Every Man a King by Walter Mosley

The Triumph of the Spider Monkey by Joyce Carol Oates

Robert B. Parker's Lullaby by Ace Atkins

The Godwulf Manuscript by Robert B. Parker

Play the Fool by Lina Chern

by Leave a Comment

Man, that month went fast The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion**** I might have a lot more to say about this one had I finished it weeks ago but I’ll be honest, I’m starting to hit my limit on books about tech geniuses that the public discovers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be only after they’re handed billions of dollars. Theranos, Uber and now WeWork all run by self-glorifying con artists. This book is as well done as the […]

February 2023 Leftovers

Dead Wind by Tessa Wegert

One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus

Messi vs. Ronaldo: One Rivalry, Two Goats, and the Era That Remade the World's Game by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg

The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz

The Title: The Story of the First Division by Scott Murray

The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson

Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie

The Fiancée by Kate White

The Guns of Heaven by Pete Hamill

by Leave a Comment

Hey on the last day of the month, it finally snowed in New York! Huzzah! Dead Wind**** I can’t talk about why I like this book without even the mildest of spoilers if you’ve been following the series. So I’ll talk about what I appreciate. I’ve been in an on-and-off reading slump the last two months. It’s been hard to finish stuff. Tessa Wegert’s Shana Merchant series really feels like the exception to the rule. I like her writing, her pacing, her protagonist. All good. One […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo