Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About TheShitWizard

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Drinking tea, reading books, petting cats. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: TheShitWizard's Quick Questions interview.)

TheShitWizard's Reviews:

Over and over and over and over…

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire

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Imaginative and insanely readable, Seanan McGuire has become one of those authors who I now pick up whenever I need a little reading pick-me-up, and she hasn’t let me down yet. In Middlegame we meet Roger and Dodger, twins created by an alchemist bent on distilling The Doctrine (essentially what makes the world go round) into human form and making him the most powerful alchemist in the world. Roger and Dodger aren’t his first set of twins on this rodeo, but they are the most […]

Fantastic start to what I’m sure will become my new obsession

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan

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An absolute delight from start to finish, as a huge fan of both the diaries of Victorian explorers and fantasy, A Natural History of Dragons felt perfectly tailored for me and I adored it so much I’ve already gone ahead and bought a bunch more of the series. Lady Trent has always been fascinated by dragons, but in her day a lady’s place is most definitely meant to be sitting prettily in a drawing room, making sure to not tax her thoughts with anything more […]

Another one on the meh pile

The Wicked Boy The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer by Kate Summerscale

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If I’m not in a reading slump this year, I seem to be in a reviewing slump. This one hasn’t been helped by not really having much of substance to say about it almost a month after reading it, a surprise to me given how much I enjoyed what Summerscale I’d previously read (The Suspicions of Mr Whicher). The Wicked Boy takes a look at another Victorian murder case which the newspapers were fond of writing about, in which 13 year old Robert Coombes and […]

It might just be my mood, but this was meh

Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins

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I was first recommended this book around a decade ago by a colleague but couldn’t find a copy of it at the time, and so over the years I’ve kept my eye out for so I could snatch up a copy as soon as it appeared. Having since got my hands on a copy, I’m now wondering if a ten year build of anticipation was always going to end it disappointment as I found this to be completely underwhelming. This really shouldn’t have been the […]

All that glitters is not gold…

The Covent Garden Ladies: The Extraordinary Story of Harris's List by Hallie Rubenhold

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I came to this both this book and to Hallie Rubenhold after inhaling Harlots on Starzplay (where the incomparable Samantha Morton’s décolletage should get a starring credit all of its own) which was inspired by this book, which was itself inspired by the notorious Harris’s List –a who’s who of the ladies whose time and bodies who could be bought in 18th century England. The Covent Garden Ladies charts the careers of three figures who were linked to the list – the pimp John Harrison […]

Feeding my Toby habit again

Night and Silence by Seanan McGuire

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I’ve become rather addicted to the Toby Daye series, so it’s been super frustrating to me that the UK Kindle release dates seem to be so behind which inevitably leads to me giving in before the time is up and breaking the promise I may not to bring more physical books into the house. But it’s been worth it – Toby always helps to bring back my reading mojo when I need it most. Night & Silence is the twelfth outing for Toby, and we […]



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