Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Long Road to Brighton

There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History by Rory Carroll

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In 1984, the IRA killed five people and came dangerously close to assassinating then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – and yet this disaster has gone mostly undiscussed in recent years. In this book, Carroll brings together the long chain of events which led up to the bombing, and unravels the complicated investigation that followed. Having been to school in both the United States and India, I like to think that I have gained a wider perspective on world history than I would have otherwise, but there […]

One million roses, each handpicked.

In Search of Perfumes: A Lifetime Journey to the Source of Nature's Scents by Dominique Roques

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Dominique Roque, a sourcing agent working in the perfume industry, recounts his travels and travails in pursuit of natural ingredients used in perfumes and dives into the storied history and often precarious methods of the producers of those raw materials. Perfume is a ubiquitous thing, to the point that you don’t really even register it. I have several bottles sitting on my dresser right now. But I’d never really thought about where the components of which they are composed of, which was why I found In […]

Madeline’s Working-Class Older Brother

Hotel Splendide by Ludwig Bemelmans

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Ludwig Bemelmans recalls his time as a waiter at a fabulous hotel in New York City, complete with lots of humor, tragedy, and a cast of colorful coworkers. I picked up this book because I love behind-the-scenes stories, and because I was interested in learning about the fabulous excess of 1920s New York City from a working-class perspective. It was only after I started reading it that I realized that the Bemelmans also wrote the Madeline series, about the little girls who lived “In an […]

In the Spirit of Collaboration

Four Weeks to Forever by Karen Booth

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CBR15 Passport Challenge: Different (sub)genres #3 Business rivals Corryna and Colin have a one night stand, but it’s when they start working together to secure the contract for a star-studded wedding that they really start getting along. Sometimes your brain needs a break, and it’s in that state of mind that one often turns to a Harlequin contemporary romance – certainly you’re not often disappointed. This is the third in a series of intertwined books surrounding a wedding, but each stands alone as well which […]

“I didn’t smuggle the dog into the country; I merely caused him to be smuggled out of Baluchistan.”

Frederica by Georgette Heyer

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CBR15 Passport Challenge: Different (sub)genres #2 The Marquis of Alverstoke, wealthy, vain, and immensely bored, sees no reason why he must put himself to any trouble for anyone at all. But when he agrees to sponsor a beautiful young woman’s debut in society, he can’t help but become tangled up with her managing older sister. I read Georgette Heyer’s romances sparingly. Not because I dislike them, but indeed the opposite – I adore their sharp humor, hijinks, and immersive historical setting – and I don’t […]

“You want to know if they’re the mittens I wore to Biden’s inauguration. That’s all anyone wants to talk about these days: mittens, mittens, mittens.”

Feel the Bern by Andrew Shaffer

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CBR15 Passport Challenge: Books from different countries #1 When Crash, a new intern working for Bernie Sanders, accompanies her boss up to a small-town festival in Vermont, the last thing she expects is to discover a dead body – or that Bernie will insist on trying to solve the mystery. A few years ago I read Hope Never Dies, a comic mystery where Obama and Biden team up in the post-2016 election season to uncover the truth behind an Amtrak conductor’s death. Now Shaffer has […]



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