Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Mystery I Really Didn’t Need to Have Solved

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

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Oh my goodness, I really loved this.  Not even sure what genre to put it in.  Fantasy, I guess, but also alternate realities, so maybe science fiction?  Anyhow, that’s a bookshop owners’ dilemma and not mine, so I will just classify it as wonderful. Piranesi, a young man, has been the sole living inhabitant of the House as far back as he remembers.  The House is multi-leveled, multi-winged, and open to the air, the weather, and the sea.  Its vast rooms contain only massive statues […]

Who would’ve thought a book about birds would be so deep?

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy

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I can’t remember if I randomly found this book because I liked the author, or because I liked the narrator. Either way, I liked the narrator! This was another book that was so very long, and I didn’t really think it needed to be so long. It’s about a woman named Franny Stone. She’s obsessed with the last flock of Arctic terns, and following them on their migratory journey. She tries to talk every ship captain she meets into letting her hitch a ride on […]

Father of Mine

Fresh Kills by Bill Loehfelm

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Read as part of cbr14 bingo: birds. There are birds on the cover of the book. Bill Loehfelm is a writer that deserves to be celebrated more than he is. I remember picking up The Devil She Knows more out of curiosity than excitement. I wanted to see how Loehfelm would bring Staten Island to life. What I got instead was one of the best crime novels I’ve read the last few years. I got caught up in Maureen’s story. I followed her to New Orleans and while […]

Penguins make me happy. Cute drawings make me happy. This book is a winner.

Penguins and Other Seabirds by Matt Sewell

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CBR14 BINGO: Cold, because penguins are usually found in cold places (but not always, like those crazy Galapagos penguins, hopping back and forth over the equator like they do). As I may have mentioned, I’m a big fan of penguins and books about penguins. Many people know this about me, so one day a coworker sent me a message saying she was mailing a little book she found that I might like. She didn’t say what it was but mentioned that she “has to mail […]

Less about Mozart’s starling than the author’s starling, but still interesting

Mozart's Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt

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CBR BINGO 14: Bird, because there is a bird on the cover and it tells the story of a bird (two, in fact!) Although the bird didn’t appear in the movie Amadeus, Mozart owned a starling during three of the most productive years of his life, the time period when he wrote The Marriage of Figaro, eight piano concertos, and three symphonies. To be able to tell the story of Mozart’s Starling effectively, author Lyanda Lynn Haupt adopted a starling of her own. This book is a […]

Bye Bye Birdie

Broadway Bird by Alex Timbers

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I will admit it. When I first saw Broadway Bird by Alex Timbers, I thought it was going to be, well, dumb. It had the look of trying to be clever and falling flat. Break a leg was not going to be a “good luck” wish, but a prophecy. Boy was I wrong! It was amusing, clever and while familiar (with its “keep trying, you will be a big star one day” theme), a little fresh. We have Louisa a sweet bird who knows she […]



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