Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“I once thought opportunities were ever arising, but now, older, I realize how thinly the door to destiny opens, how quickly it shuts.”

Every Rising Sun by Jamila Ahmed

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CBR17 Bingo: Arts – Shaherazade is a storyteller, and her weaving and telling of tales is her chief pleasure and weapon throughout the story. When Shaherazade anonymously informs the Malik Shahriyar of his wife’s infidelity, she never imagines the madness – and the murders – to follow. Desperate to save the kingdom and Shahriyar himself, she nominates herself to be his bride, gambling her life on her storytelling. But between the ongoing Crusades and political tensions with neighboring kingdoms, Shaherazade may have bitten off more […]

Fuck your Southern “honor”

The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson

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CBR 17 BINGO: Culture, because the culture of the pre-American Civil War South is prominent in this book Erik Larson is one of my favorite non-fiction writers, and if American history is your jam, this is a must-read. Folks like myself who are less war-curious might still find it interesting; however, I felt it sometimes got bogged down in the logistics of pre-war strategy. I found the sections dedicated to the personalities involved and the beliefs of the times more interesting, and also more rage-inducing. […]

Search for the Historical Jesus

Zealot by Reza Aslan

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Bingo: Migrant. Jesus has often been identified as a migrant, although it is not likely he was born in Bethlehem and fled to Egypt; he was simply born in Nazareth. However, as he grew older, he likely did travel to local cities to work as a laborer. I have a mixed religious history. My grandfather was Jewish, and I am ethnically part Ashkanazi. I was raised a Catholic and while I stopped going to church in my teens, I remained a person of faith until […]

Settle Yourselves Down for a STORY.

The Knight of Maison-Rouge by Alexandre Dumas

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cbr17bingo Citizen How many times has The Three Musketeers been filmed?  Dumas knew how to tell a tale, even though he could be fairly verbose, at times.  But hey. when you get paid by volume, that makes sense. The Knight of Maison Rouge, the character named in the title, is a champion of Marie Antoinette, in that murky period in French history between the execution of her husband, Louis XVI, and her own.  The government consisted of various battling contingents of “citizens” each trying to […]

“We all carry our special homes with us – in our backpacks and pockets, and in our hearts.”

My Home Is in My Backpack by Eugenia Perella

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cbr17bingo, MigrantMigrant: There are many ways to find a book when you work in a bookstore. One is finished copies sent out before the book is published. This way the bookseller can get the full feeling of the book. And I am very glad I was able to do this with My Home Is in My Backpack by Eugenia Perella (due in October 2025). An online copy would not  do this book justice. Clara and her family are forced to leave an unnamed home/homeland. They […]

Ground Control to Major Tom

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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Bingo Square: Work (because astronauts and NASA) I really enjoy Taylor Jenkins Reid and her novels – as books, Malibu Rising and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo are my favorite of hers but the audio version of Daisy Jones and the Six elevates that novel beyond what is on the page (I do consider audiobooks reading and they count as read book but sometimes I want to distinguish how I read succinctly because for things like Daisy Jones, it actually is kind of a […]



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