Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About esmemoria

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Eager to get back on the horse this year! In my walking around life, I miss my old, blind pug (the Ancient Mariner), help amazing college students become teachers, and tie an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: esmemoria's Quick Questions interview.)

esmemoria's Reviews:

Cozy Mysteries that Fall Flat

Enter a Murderer by Ngaio Marsh

The Nursing Home Murder by Ngaio Marsh

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I am an Agatha Christie fanatic and have pretty much read all her books. In my search to read more books like Christie’s, I’ve come across Ngaio Marsh, a writer from New Zealand. Unfortunately, she is missing that special something that Christie has. Marsh’s books Enter a Murderer and The Nursing Home Murder are straight marches from murder to revelation. The former is set in a theater house, while the latter is in the mentioned nursing home. Each book is filled with so many characters […]

Getting Back in the Habit

Unnatural Causes by P.D. James

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The corpse without hands lay in the bottom of a small sailing dinghy drifting just within sight of the Suffolk coast. It was the body of a middle-age man, a dapper little cadaver, its shroud a dark pin-striped suit which fitted the narrow body as elegantly in death as it had in life. Synopsis. In Unnatural Causes, the murder of a local author along the sea coast doesn’t appear to be a murder at all. But a vacationing inspector Adam Dalgliesh is drawn into the […]

When an Entire Book is a Spoiler

Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson

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Peter Swanson’s Eight Perfect Murders is a fantastic mystery/psychological thriller, but be warned: if you aren’t a hardcore mystery buff you may find a slew of classic mysteries spoiled for you. Malcolm Kershaw is the owner of a bookstore specializing in mysteries. One night he receives a call from an FBI agent about a series of murders that may be connected to a blog post Malcolm wrote in the past called “Eight Perfect Murders.” In the blog post Malcolm listed eight books that feature what […]

Aimless Dud

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl

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In my review of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I was excited to re-read the sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl. I haven’t read the sequel since I was a kid, so I was hoping it was as magical as the first book. It was not. There are basically three sections to the book. In the first section, Charlie, Willy Wonka, and Charlie’s family rocket to outer space in the chocolate factory’s glass elevator, not that that was their initial plan. […]

Thank you S.S.!!!!!

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I was so delighted with my holiday exchange package, I don’t know where to start! I am excited to read the books you sent, especially because they are completely new to me and they are your personal recommendations. The blank journal was a bonus (and you’re right, all avid readers have a collection!) I wasn’t sure of your screen name, so forgive the initials in the title. A huge thank you for such a generous gift.

Still Holds Up (Now with Less Racism)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

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Roald Dahl was an awful, awful person. He was wildly antisemitic, racist, and so disagreeable one of his wives called him “Roald the Rotten.” He’s a classic case of “separate the artist from the art,” because his whimsical, captivating (but always with a dark side) books seem to bely his misanthropic personality. I thought about this the whole time I was reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Charlie is a sweet, good little boy who lives in abject poverty with his parents and four grandparents. […]



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