Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Hardest Loss of All

Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear

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In this book, the fourth in the Maisie Dobbs series, Maisie is asked to investigate the death of an old school acquaintance’s twin brother.  Nick Basington-Hope was a controversial artist and a veteran of the recent Great War, as is Maisie.  He had been keeping his work from the view of others due to its controversial content, but had just arranged for a grand showing.  Some of the pieces were quite large, and apparently, as he was installing them on his own on a landing, […]

History, women, and books

The Boxcar Librarian by Brianna Labuskes

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CBR17Bingo: “B” I first thought that The Boxcar Librarian (2025) by Brianna Labuskes might be a good present for my mother, since she was a librarian herself. But I wouldn’t give any book to my mother that I wasn’t willing to read myself, so I put a hold on it at the library. This book takes place around the Depression Era of the 1930’s, and the story follows three different women whose lives are unexpectedly intertwined: Millie, Alice, and Colette. Millie grew up on her aunt and […]

More Christmas and Yule please

The Legend of the Christmas Witch by Dan Murphy and Aubrey Plaza

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With the book, The Legend of the Christmas Witch, I wanted more about Christmas and less, well, witch. I understand that Dan Murphy and Aubrey Plaza wanted to build up to the climax, but it made no real sense to me why things were called Christmas. First, she practices Yule celebrations. Second, we only see her being impatient, spoiled and naive. We do find Christmas with a Santa character, who is the witch’s beloved twin brother who turns out to be a bit of a […]

Giraffe ferry

The GiRaft: A Real-Life Giraffe Rescue by Laurel Neme and Elisa Paganelli

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There is clever and there is clever but just misses the mark when it comes to a fun title. And this is a clever title. The GiRaft: A Real-Life Giraffe Rescue is an easily accessible book as it explains about people save some rare giraffes by using a raft to save it, after a natural event causes a serious situation.  But Laurel Neme gave us more than just that. There is history and environmentalism. There is love of animals and the land. There is a […]

“If you had better sense you’d have learned by now that nothing thrives so well as wickedness.”

Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor

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CBR17 Bingo: Play – Amber works as an actress in the Theatre Royal for a section of the book. Also, she’s always playing one role or another to ensnare her latest protector as she works her way up society’s rungs. Amber starts life as the adopted daughter of a farmer, but her beauty and her naked ambition has her destined for greater things – if only she can break free of her love of the unfaithful privateer Bruce. I read on this book’s Wikipedia page (because, […]

“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. —OSCAR WILDE”

The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective by Steven Johnson

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This book traces how the invention of dynamite by Alfred Nobel (who went on to start the Nobel Prizes) led to the birth of the anarchist movement, which in turn led to the birth of the modern forensics-driven law enforcement agencies. Concentrating heavily on Emma Goldman and Alexander “Sasha” Berkman, this is mostly set in New York City. I can say this was a highly researched, informative, not dryly written book that seemed to not be able to make up its mind about anarchism. Johnson […]



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