Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Bothari43

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When writing a genre-based lim'rick / Avoid lengthy 'post-apoc'lyptic' / Though CB reviews / Have broadened my views / My fave is still chick-written sci-fic (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Bothari43's Quick Questions interview.)

Bothari43's Reviews:

Getting this year’s one-star review out of the way early

Ringworld by Larry Niven

by 8 Comments

I admit, I went into this expecting to dislike it. When my library sci-fi book club picked Larry Niven, all I knew about him was that my dad (fellow Cannonballer sabian30) and his entire science fiction club hated him. Niven was the guest writer at a sci-fi convention they helped organize, and apparently dude is a dillhole. So hooray for validation! I did not enjoy this one at all. Unlikeable characters, an incomprehensible setting (the more he explained what the Ringworld was, the less I […]

Including a character named after a Georgette Heyer character who runs off to Gretna Green

Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffith

by 2 Comments

This was a cleverly-told mystery, a level up from a ‘cozy.’ Plus, it’s got a bunch of characters who are mega-fans of Georgette Heyer, so that’s just fun.  Clare is an English teacher who keeps extensive diaries. When a fellow English teacher is murdered, and the police question her about a conference the two of them attended, Clare goes back to her diaries to read her thoughts about the weekend in question. She finds a new note at the bottom of the page: “Hello, Clare. […]

“It was difficult to have an opinion when his antagonist kept breaking the rules of reality.”

Carter & Lovecraft by Jonathan L. Howard

by 3 Comments

Books like this are why I like book clubs. I never would have picked this up on my own, but it was the January pick for my library sci-fi book club, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We read the Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories for the December meeting (Lovecraft was not a great person or a great writer – so many flowery adjectives! – but I was glad to know the backstory behind the beastie that’s taken over the internet), so this was […]

Cookies for a cause: the best kind

Smash the Pastry-archy by Planned Parenthood

by 4 Comments

The Georgia Planned Parenthood was selling these as a fundraiser, and I was more than happy to participate and support! Each recipe is from an Atlanta-area restaurant or bakery. I’ve tried three of the recipes so far. Two are definite keepers (the peanut butter chocolate chip pretzel ones from JC’s Cookies were the best, and the ginger shortbread thumbprint cookies from Banshee were very good), and one I probably won’t make again (the strawberry shortcake ones from Kimball House were an odd consistency). But I’m […]

Quick Questions with a Cannonballer: Jenna

by 6 Comments

Your bio says your favorite genre is “takes place in an old hotel.” I love the specificity of that! Do you have a favorite “old hotel” book, or one that you think best represents the genre? I think anything Agatha Christie wrote set in a hotel or boarding house (most recently, I read N or M?) exemplifies what I love about hotel stories. There are always secret nooks and crannies, everyone knows more than they let on, and time is always of the essence because […]

An interesting contrast to the misogynistic nonsense that was Vox

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

by 1 Comment

Usually I prefer a heaping helping of escapism in my media (as Murderbot would say), but this Bloggess-recommended book was CHEWY, and I think I will be pondering it for quite some time. I’m not sure how far to go into the synopsis, because it’s going to get spoilery real fast, but here goes: Evelyn is a brilliant scientist who specializes in clones, mapping the brain to make a clone more or less like their progenitor. Her husband is a less-brilliant scientist, jealous of the […]



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