Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Things That Go Bump at the Dinner Table

Fears: Tales of Psychological Horror by Ellen Datlow (editor)

by Leave a Comment

In this anthology of psychological horror, we encounter killers, madmen, and twisted families in this presentation of the many shades of human depravity. My preferred subgenre of horror is psychological horror. Here there’s no ghosts or curses or demons – just the strange and terrifying excesses of human nature. The horror is enhanced by the fact that, bar the occasional tinge of the supernatural, everything that happened in this book could happen in real life. All of the stories included in this book were originally […]

Jazz Baby

Where All Good Flappers Go: Essential Stories of the Jazz Age by David M. Earle (Editor)

by Leave a Comment

The flapper girl is an icon of the Roaring Twenties, appearing in plenty of novels and films of the era. In this anthology, Pushkin Press brings together some contemporary short stories about the flapper which were published in magazines and papers of the time that celebrated these young women as a mirror of the times. I haven’t read much literature from the 1920s beyond the obligatory The Great Gatsby, but I’ve always found it intriguing how quickly social mores seemed to swing round during this […]

Metamorphoses for a New Millennium

Fit For the Gods by Jenn Northington (Editor), S. Zainab Williams (Editor)

by Leave a Comment

Though Greek mythology originates from several millennia ago, their stories have been renewed again and again over the centuries through art and literature. In this anthology, more than a dozen authors tackle this too – but their tellings are with a twist, bringing racially, sexually, and culturally diverse takes to the classic stories. I’ve always loved Greek mythology and have engaged with in a plethora of ways, from reading classic translations to the Percy Jackson books to the recent trend in novel-length unpackings like Madeline […]

She looked as good as air conditioning.

Give it to Me! by Angelina M. Lopez

by Leave a Comment

In Give it to Me: Sexy Tales About Women Getting the Good Loving, Lopez gives us a collection that shows her range as a story teller. From the jet-setting billionaire and her wine making prince to a woman who has gone back to school looking for some precious alone time in the library stacks, Lopez is writing about women getting what they want. The first and last stories, “The Phone Call” and “Star 69,” are a part one and part two. “The Phone Call” is […]

Love in Masquerade

My Only Valentine by Victoria Henshaw, Julia Parks, Donna Simpson

by Leave a Comment

Three couples in Regency England find their way to each other through various Valentine’s Day related events and hijinks. In “The Valentine Poem” by Victoria Henshaw, Susan Kimball falls in love with her Italian tutor, little suspecting that he is actually a nobleman undercover. This is a cute romance with little plot, and I liked the relationship between John and his half-brother the duke. However, Susan’s bleak moment seemed very illogical for a generally logical heroine – it really should have been timed for before […]

50 Years of Feminism

50 Years of Ms.: The Best of the Pathfinding Magazine That Ignited a Revolution by Katherine Spillar, Eleanor Smeal, Gloria Steinem

by Leave a Comment

Seminal articles, pieces of fiction, and letters to the editor compiled from fifty years’ worth of Ms. magazine provide us with a glimpse into the last half-century of the feminist movement. For someone living in the 21st century, I have a hefty digital collection of midcentury magazines. I find it fascinating to immerse myself in the minutiae of such a different period, seeing how the world was expected to look at the time. I even like reading the advertisements! I haven’t read any old editions of […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo