Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About vel veeter

CBR 8
CBR 9
CBR10 participant
CBR11 participant
CBR12 participant
CBR13 participant
CBR14 Participant
CBR14 Bingo Badges
CBR15 Participant

vel veeter's Reviews:

N or M? – Agatha Christie (1941)

N or M? by Agatha Christie

by Leave a Comment

The first Tommy and Tuppence mystery finds the charming pair meeting up after the first world war, having an adventure, falling in love, and starting their life together. It’s a jaunty novel in a lot of ways that springs from the kind of hope that peppered the 1920s for a lot of people. This novel takes place in 1940 (and was published in 1941) and the shadow of a Nazi-occupied Europe and the very possible fall of Great Britain to the Nazis has added a […]

Ordeal by Innocence – Agatha Christie (1958)

Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie

by Leave a Comment

A late 1950s Agatha Christie and one not populated by any of her recurring characters (unless I missed something). Sometimes these books unconnected to a series can feel wayward, and sometimes they’re tighter because there’s not a need to follow the patterns established by earlier books. Here, we meet an exceedingly rich and dysfunctional family, who we learn are in some later aftermath of the murder of their matriarch, and the subsequent conviction of that murder by one of the sons. He also died in […]

Cell – Stephen King (2006)

Cell by Stephen King

by 1 Comment

I first read this when it came out in 2006, and I thought then, and maintain now, that the conceit, as presented in the title of the book and the promotional material for the book is dumb as hell, but the book itself, is smarter. “Your number is up!” the book cover screams! But the book itself, where, one afternoon some kind of “pulse” goes through cell phones causing each user who happens to be on a call at the moment, and anyone making a […]

Five Days in London – John Lukacs (1999)

Five Days in London by John Lukacs

by Leave a Comment

This is short book-length study of the series of early war cabinet meetings between the newly elected Churchill and his bipartison (national government) group of advisors in which Churchill held firm on his beliefs that a full-throated defense (and offense) against Hitler was necessary to preserve the United Kingdom and by extension the rest of the Western world. These meetings were tense in part because of the shaky ground Churchill’s installation as prime minister was founded–a compromised coalition without full support of his party; continued […]

The Aspern Papers – Henry James (1888)

The Aspern Papers by Henry James

by Leave a Comment

Other than rereadings of “Daisy Miller” and “Beast in the Jungle” for teaching purposes, this is the first Henry James I’ve read since a college class I took my senior year. It takes it out of you to read several of his novels, and many many of his short fiction in a single semester. It’s very rewarding as well, but it’s tasking. This novella didn’t feel as tasking and I don’t know if that’s just because I am older and a better reader, if it […]

The Face of Battle – John Keegan (1976)

The Face of Battle by John Keegan

by Leave a Comment

This 1976 military history book seeks to answer what can we know not just of battles themselves, but in the experience of fighting and participating in battles. To do this, John Keegan primarily looks at three historical battles that the English (and then the British) military engaged in: Agincourt (the Saint Crispins Day battle we know from Henry V in the Hundred Years War) in 1415, the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon’s famous defeat, and the battle of the Somme during WWI. He begins by addressing […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo