Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Old Story, New Take

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

by 4 Comments

One of my students suggested this book a few weeks ago, and I always try to take their recommendations seriously. Most of the time I’m disappointed, or their tastes just aren’t mine, but this one was an absolute winner. The Song of Achilles is one of the most poignant and beautiful novels I’ve read in a long time. Miller’s adaption of the Illiad is told from Patroclus’ point-of-view, and follows his relationship with Achilles from their boyhood meeting when Patroclus is banished to Phthia for accidentally killing […]

“Children long to be eaten. Everyone knows that.”

XO Orpheus: 50 New Myths by Kate Bernheimer (editor)

by 2 Comments

Am I typing this up while wearing a tee featuring the cover of the d’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths? YOU KNOW IT! That strange tome of simplified myth and ultra-bright illustration cracked open a need in me when I was very young. I re-read that book countless times, and used it as the entry point into the larger world of mythology. Combined with a Catholic upbringing that was far more focused on the deaths of the saints than on anything else, you could saw I […]

Overall good but appreciated the stories by characters that aren’t Harry Dresden in particular.

Brief Cases by Jim Butcher

by 1 Comment

Last year I listened to the first Dresden Files short story collection, Side Jobs, to be able to listen to the excellent narration by James Marsters (on the recommendation of ardaigle!).  Marsters is a great narrator but he fell short when it came time for Karrin Murphy’s story at the end of the book.  For the next collection of short stories, Brief Cases, they brought on two female narrators, Cassandra Campbell and Julia Whelan for stories from Anastasia Luccio and Molly Carpenter’s POV.  No disrespect to […]

Kaiju fun and a great standalone from Scalzi

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

by 8 Comments

The Kaiju Preservation Society is a fun romp and a refreshing reset of Scalzi, for me.  His most recent works, “The Interdependency Saga” (a trilogy), left me feeling ‘meh’.  My review for the second book had me questioning whether I was cooling on Scalzi.  I still have yet to read the third.  When Scalzi announced this book, I was intrigued by the name and that it would be a standalone novel.  The Kaiju Preservation Society was preordered, and I’m grateful I did because it provided much […]

There’s No End Like a Sanderson End

The Hero of Ages by Bandon Sanderson

by 1 Comment

The more Sanderson I read, the more I feel like his books are really just love letters to his fans. His author notes are always so personal, and its clear that he takes his fans seriously and thinks about them as he’s writing. In this last installment of the Mistborn trilogy, Sanderson’s goal was to write an ending of a series that both satisfied and concluded without rushing or shoehorning. He took all the things he hated about series that ended disappointedly and made sure he […]

If you need an entire glossary of acronyms and jargon, you may have a little problem

The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

by 1 Comment

The Atrocity Archives (Laundry Files 1) is one of those titles that just kept popping up on my radar, and then when it went on Kindle sale I figured, that was the time. The premise is a cross between Office Space and X-Files, kind of like a supernatural NCIS kind of way. Our protagonist is Bob Howard, an IT done of the corporate variety on the surface, but who in reality works for a secret government agency specializing in protection against magic and the supernatural […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo