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:

Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of a bloke trying to get down a mountain with his legs smashed

The Ogre: Biography of a mountain and the dramatic story of its first ascent by Doug Scott

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When I read this book we all lived in a different world – one where deciding to climb a dangerous mountain was more life-threatening than leaving your own house. Strange times we live in, folks… Anyhoo – the book. The Ogre is an account of one the people who did indeed try to climb the titular mountain, one that is apparently notorious amongst climbers for being extremely difficult. The first half of the book gives us an overview of the mountain, the region it inhabits […]

We are no more than shadows flickering briefly on the moors. But the flickering is beautiful.

A Black Fox Running by Brian Carter

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A Black Fox Running is not the type of book I would normally pick up for myself, so I’m glad that this was bought for me as it’s a really beautiful book in so many ways. Kind of a more grown up Watership Down but for foxes, Wulfgar is the titular black wolf whose trials and tribulations we follow. Set on Dartmoor and bringing in the voices of the other animals as well as the humans who inhabit the moor, it’s a great example of […]

I should have probably read this at Christmas

Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas by Adam Kay

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The obligatory Christmas tie-in to Kay’s This Is Going To Hurt, Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas covers the many Christmases that Kay worked for the NHS, with all the humour and heartache that one would expect. It’s an extremely quick read too – you could finish it in the time it took you to eat a Christmas dinner – which would fit perfectly into a stocking (remember this for, erm, nine months time I guess). Being an obstetrics/maternity specialist, babies who refuse to wait till […]

So many trigger warnings

Lies Lies Lies by Adele Parks

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I actually finished this book weeks ago but have been struggling to articulate my thoughts enough since to write a review, mostly because I found it so……..ugh. And while I don’t want to spoil the twists for other readers, I feel it would be remiss not to mention that this book features alcoholism, child endangerment, rape and sexual assault, coercive control and emotional abuse. Sanctimonious and spineless Daisy has been married to alcoholic Simon for years. They have the perfect ballet dancing daughter, Poppy, and […]

“Anyway, we delivered the bomb.”

In Harm's Way by Doug Stanton

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A lifelong Jaws fan, the most I ever really knew about the USS Indianapolis was what was related by Quint in one of my favourite scenes in cinema, so when I spotted this book, complete with its same-surname-as-me author, it was a must buy. It turns out – as always –  that reality is far, far more horrifying than any Hollywood blockbuster could ever wish to be. For those who don’t know what happened to the Indianapolis and her men, a brief synopsis. Fresh from […]

Secrets and lies

A Change of Climate by Hilary Mantel

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A book about betrayal, A Change of Climate lets us into the lives of the Eldred family – Ralph, Anna and their children, and Ralph’s sister Emma. Brought up by deeply religious and incredibly rigid and intolerant parents, young Ralph was blackmailed into a life he didn’t want by his father’s threats to his sister’s dreams. Living a life of dutiful charity, sent first as missionaries to South Africa under apartheid and now back in rural Norfolk, what little the Eldreds have has always been […]



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