Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Draw Draw, Draw Your Pen Manically Across the Page

River of Ink by Etiene Appert

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cbr13bingo  People I am not sure if what I read was the entire book of River of Ink by Etiene Appert or not as I found an online edition for booksellers via a newsletter I occasional get. It did feel complete, had a what felt like a solid ending; therefore, I am assuming, yes, I read all of Appert’s book. However, regardless of what I did read, I know I read enough to know two things: One: WHAT THE FLYING MONKEYS did I just read? […]

“A kiss might be blameless, so long as it was the other person doing the leaning. Was it your fault, really, if someone else kissed you?”

The Portrait of a Mirror by A. Natasha Joukovsky

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What if A.S. Byatt’s Possession popped up again in the internet age? The Portrait of a Mirror answers that question with a heaping helping of Greek mythology to boot. Diana, Wes, Dale, and Vivien are spoiled obsessives staring at themselves into eternity. They are slimy people, but you know what? I don’t care! I want them to be happy in their clandestine adventures, and I want them to be miserable in their public falling outs! Wes and Diana are married. Their relationship is a constant sparring match that […]

if it feels too good to be true…

The Whispering House by Elizabeth Brooks

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THEN IT IS! RUN! Freya, our protagonist, is a willfully clueless horror heroine. Were The Whispering House a movie, we would all be shouting at her every time she was on screen. Don’t open that door! Don’t drink that tea! Don’t go up those stairs! Don’t look behind you! Don’t move in to the crumbling manor house that is somehow connected to your sister’s suicide days after meeting the charming yet off-putting man of the house! Just…DON’T! A blurb on the cover of my ARC states […]

In the 17th century, birds were appreciated for their beauty, and also their tastiness

Pasta for Nightingales: A 17th-Century Handbook of Bird-Care and Folklore by Giovanni Pietro Olina

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The common hoopoe gets drunk on fermented grapes; goldfinches suffer from epilepsy; to properly keep francolins, you must keep a small crate or case within the aviary for the birds to nestle down in. These are just a few of the handy tips that Giovani Pietro Olina offers in his 17th-century handbook on bird care, Pasta for Nightingales. This charming little tome is an English translation of a book written in 1622, called Uccelliera, which is Italian for The Aviary. The title of the English […]

what happens to the torch-bearers, the candle holders, the vigil keepers?

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

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There is so much that I want to tell you about this book, but I won’t. I took so many notes, and placed so many scraps of paper between pages, but I do not want to ruin a single realization for you. Rebecca Makkai has crafted an intricately woven tapestry that you have to witness in its full glory; I do not want to give you a magnifying glass before you have had a chance to first witness the enormity of the project. The Great Believers hits […]

crystalclear read my mind!

The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian

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Way back in the olden days of 2020, the amazing crystalclear sent some inspired picks my way for CBR Book Exchange. Hooray! I kicked off the new year with one of their thoughtful additions to my TBR pile; I had wanted to read Storm Front for some time thanks to the lovely folks here at CBR. The other book, The Light in the Ruins, was a book with which I was unfamiliar. I was immediately excited and impressed after reading the cover copy, as I […]



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