Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Based on the cover, you’d think this was about three friends. It’s really not, at all.

Lilac Girls: A Novel by Martha Hall Kelly

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This was not what I was expecting at all.  I bought it ages ago and it’s been sitting on my Kindle for over a year.  I started it when I was travelling, I did not have the wifi turned on and so did not get the book summary when you open a book for the first time.  All I knew was this was set in WWII and featured three women from different walks of life, whose lives intersected somehow.  Based on the cover, they appear friends.  That’s not what happens at all. What I didn’t realise going in was that […]

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3/8/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:17 |

Their names written on water. Or scorched into the earth. Or atomized into the air. Legion.

A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

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CBR10Bingo: This Is The End (BINGO!) Have you ever read a book that you hated to put down but also hated to keep reading because you couldn’t bear the thought of reaching the end? That’s how I felt reading Kate Atkinson’s A God in Ruins, the companion to her brilliant Life After Life.  Unlike Ursula in Life After Life, her younger brother Teddy only gets one shot at life. He still becomes a bomber pilot during World War II, still gets shot down over Germany, but this time he survives, captured and imprisoned for the last 18 months of the […]

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11/2/2018 's CBR10 Review No:60 |

If you wonder what the Irish were doing in World War II this might answer it….

Projekt 1065: A Novel of World War II by Alan Gratz

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This is the Award Winner. The Dorothy Canfield Fisher award is a Vermont state award that the books are picked by adults (though I am not always sure why they were the pickers as one was a professor at my college who had no English or child background that I knew of) and then voted on by the kids. Of course, the year I did this award the “cool kids” pick won. But that is the perfect lead in to this book. It is 1943. Germany is winning the war. Mostly. Or at least that is what they say. Actions […]

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10/9/2018 's CBR10 Review No:375 |

I’ve been waiting for this moment for Cannonball my life, oh Lord

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

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CBR10Bingo: Backlog (Cannonball! and Bingo! Woohoo!) After reading a few Sherman Alexie books a few years ago, Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony started popping up in my suggestions, and for some reason, I thought it was poetry rather than a novel. Once I read the description, I put it on my wishlist, where it languished for several months until I finally bought a copy last summer at The Last Bookstore in downtown Los Angeles on a long lunch break from jury duty. I’ve pulled it off my bookshelf a few times when looking for my next read but never quite pulled […]

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9/8/2018 's CBR10 Review No:52 |

The Hell of War on the Home Front

Perfidia by James Ellroy

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Read as part of CBR10Bingo: Almost award winner. Perfidia was nominated for the 2015 Folio Prize but did not win. It speaks to the times we live in that the depth of my cynicism has allowed me to appreciate James Ellroy novels in a way I never could before this summer. This is the second book of his I’ve read the last few months and it’s one of the best things I read in 2018. It could also be that this one is slightly better than the others I’ve read. Whereas I usually can’t stand the crass dialogue and doctrinal amorality of […]

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9/6/2018 's CBR10 Review No:17 |

The black bat night approached and enfolded her in its wings

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

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For the past 15+ years, I’ve been the target audience for the Man Booker awards: literary fiction snob leaning to British Commonwealth authors. Though I have been branching out into other genres over the last few years, I still look to the Booker long- and shortlists for recommendations and usually pick up at least a few each year. For some reason, I haven’t looked much into other prizes until this year when I realized the Baileys (formerly Orange) prize lists would be a great resource for discovering new books by women.  Browsing through that list as well as the Costa […]

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7/11/2018 's CBR10 Review No:37 |

Just Your Average, Forgettable World War II novel …

Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly

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I have been interested in the Holocaust and World War II since I was about 8 years old and have read quite a few novels, fictionalized accounts and nonfiction books on the topics as a result.  I have certainly taken breaks at various points but always tend to come back to the topic.  It also means there are certain types of books I am less likely to pick up based on previous experience.  While I liked Sarah’s Key on initial read because of the view into the French and the Holocaust, it also has made me shy away from dual […]

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7/11/2018 's CBR10 Review No:126 |

If I told you her real name, I’d have to kill you…

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

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I wasn’t sure what this book was about, just that it was good. So I took a chance and was thrust into the interrogation of a Scottish World War II war prisoner for the Germans. The subject of the interrogation? Not your usual WWII prisoner, as it’s a female. And she seems especially…perky?…for being interrogated. Okay, maybe perky isn’t the best choice of words, but she’s definitely not short on wits, snark, or even a sense of humor. And who can resist someone who says things like, “buckets of blood” as an expletive? It is this voice that kept me […]

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7/3/2018 's CBR10 Review No:5 |


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