Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“Nothing is inevitable, and you always have to go back farther than you expect.”

The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz

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CBRBingo: They/She/He – Non-binary author On their podcast Our Opinions are Correct, Annalee Newitz describes themself as a “science journalist who writes science fiction”. I love the podcast and the novels of their co-host and life partner Charlie Jane Anderson, so I thought it was time to check out Newitz’s work for the They/She/He bingo square. Timetravelling, feminist science fiction is most definitely right up my alley.  The world of this novel is a sidestep from our own, much the same, but clearly on a different timeline.  […]

“Is there anything more beautiful than living light?”

Phosphoresence: On awe, wonder and things that sustain you when the world goes dark by Julia Baird

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CBRBingo:  Self-help This book has a glorious cover that is well-matched to the contents.  Julia Baird – historian, journalist, TV presenter – blends  personal experience, scientific research, philosophy and theology to outline her argument that instead of asking how we stay happy we should ask “how do we survive, stay alive or even bloom when the world goes dark, when we are, for instance, overwhelmed by illness or heartbreak, loss or pain?”. Beginning with a discussion of literal phosphoresence – light released by natural substances […]

Heist gateway to YA fantasy

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

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CBRBingo – Gateway I haven’t read Bardugo’s Grisha trilogy, and I don’t think I will after the consensus at the CBR catch-up that the worldbuilding was let down by the execution.  But I loved Six of Crows, also set in Bardugo’s Grishaverse. So did many other Cannonballers, who have written a number of excellent reviews that free me from the need to focus on plot or character profiles in mine. This was an obvious choice for the Gateway Bingo square.  While most definitely a fantasy novel, set […]

Master class on subtlety

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

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CBRBingo: White Whale My local book club is reading classics this year, and this was our April selection.  I had seen the movie with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson back in the 90s, but had never read the book, even though I had it in my huge Unread folder on my Kindle. This book is a master class on subtlety, the story of a man who inhabits a role that is increasingly out of place in his world.  A butler, son of a butler, he […]

When doors open, stories happen

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow

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CBRbingo: Flora “If we address stories as archaeological sites, and dust through their layers with meticulous care, we find at some level there is always a doorway.” January Scaller is a young woman of uncertain status.  The mixed race protégé of a wealthy and controlling man,  she barely knows her father, who travels the world in search of artefacts for his employer, her benefactor.   When she finds a mysterious book it unlocks the story of her own past, and the secret of the Doors that […]

Corporate teambuilding retreat goes terribly wrong

Force of Nature by Jane Harper

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CBRbingo: Landscape Sense of place is Jane Harper’s trademark as an author, and this is no exception.  In her sequel to The Dry she takes forensic accountant Aaron Falk well out of his element, into Victoria’s dense’ly forested high country. A corporate teambuilding exercise has gone terribly wrong.  Four women make it to the rendesvouz point half a day late, exhausted, hungry, injured.  Abrasive Alice is missing.  “In the chaos, in the night, it was impossible to say which of the four has asked after Alice’s […]



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