Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“…and then I leave the door open, so I’ll be ready when the luck happens.”

Be Ready When the Luck Happens by Ina Garten

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  Up next in the parade of memoirs, mostly of women, we come to Ina Garten’s Be Ready When the Luck Happens.  Off the top, I’m going to say that I knew very little about Garten, pre-reading: I knew she was called the Barefoot Contessa, and that she had a cooking show that occasionally made it into my viewing queue, and that she is a quality meme format (‘store bought is fine’), but that was about all. As it happens? I was missing out. Because Garten […]

“Reading is one of the main things I do. Reading is everything.”

I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron

I Remember Nothing & Other Reflections by Nora Ephron

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Reading makes me feel I’ve accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss. […]

Not “believe” but “acknowledge.”

The Paranormal Ranger: A Navajo Investigator’s Search for the Unexplained by Stanley Milford, Jr.

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Stanley Milford, Jr., a retired law enforcement officer, is the perfect guy to write a book like The Paranormal Ranger. Rather than coming across as a showman or a snake oil salesman, Milford is unassuming, compassionate, logical, humble, multicultural. Perhaps most importantly, he is credible. That makes The Paranormal Ranger worth reading for anyone interested in things that happen on the borders of the explainable. Milford is the son of a mother raised Baptist and a father raised more in First Nations traditions. Therefore, Milford […]

“Actually,” Stacy says, “Stanley Tucci is everyone’s type.” I nod in solidarity. “Amen.”

What I Ate in One Year by Stanley Tucci

Taste: My Life in Food by Stanley Tucci

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The title quote is from Julie Murphy’s , If the Shoe Fits, which I think marks the first time I’m using a pull quote for a review that is not from either of the actual books I am reviewing, but I can’t really help it when someone else has communicated the truth so clearly.  In What I Ate in One Year, speaking about his friend & fellow actor Andrew Scott, Stanley Tucci muses “Can someone be too good at something? I mean, so good, that everyone else […]

Storytelling Style Grew on Me

All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda

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Best for: Those who like a bit of creative license with their storytelling. In a nutshell: Nicolette (Nic) is back home to help prepare her dad’s home for sale. Her dad’s memory is going, but he keeps saying things that make other think he knows about someone who went missing ten years ago. Worth quoting: N/A Why I chose it: I liked another work by this author. Review: I was into this book at the start, then was skeptical, but by the end I was […]

You can have what you want, as long as you ask for it

My Best Friend’s Honeymoon by Meryl Wilsner

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My Best Friend’s Honeymoon is somehow the first book I’ve read by Meryl Wilsner. I enjoyed it a lot and now I get to go read their backlist. I listened to an advance copy narrated by Blair Baker and Emily Shaw. I thought they did a great job bringing the book to life. Elsie’s fiancé, Derek, plans and schedules the wedding that Elsie has said she’s too busy and overwhelmed to plan. When he shows Elsie the venue and lets her know they are getting […]



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