Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Would have liked there to be a stronger romance element

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman

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4.5 stars From Goodreads, because it’s been over a month since I finished this: The only child of a single mother, Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book. When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, […]

A Beautiful Dropkick to the Heart

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry: A Novel by Gabrielle Zevin

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Alias is one of those tv shows that I just missed. Never really thought about it until 15 years after it debuted. I knew people watched it, I knew it was a thing, but I didn’t watch it. This summer, though, I started checking out all of the Alias DVDs at the library on a whim. Since then, I’ve become something of a Jennifer Garner completionist. This coincided nicely with my quest to become a Timothy Olyphant completionist. They co-starred in a rom-dramedy (?) called […]

Darkly Enchanting

The Binding by Bridget Collins

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It’s been a long time since a book has really grabbed me and not let go until the end. I’m a slow reader these days, usually taking 2 – 3 weeks to finish a book since I only read at night before bed. But The Binding demanded my time. I read it everywhere, foregoing all kinds of adulting in favor of immersing myself in Collins’ world, and I finished it in about 3 days. In the world of The Binding, there are people who have the […]

Join Thomas on his adventure in a book . . . inside a book . . . inside a book

The Book in the Book in the Book  by Julien Baer

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The Book in the Book in the Book  is a clever book. And while the idea has been done before, Julien Baer and Simon Bailly presents it in a new format. When Thomas wanders off while spending a day on the beach with his family, he finds a book about a boy named Thomas who is having a day on the winter slopes. He too, wanders off and finds a book about a boy named Thomas who is a having a day out in outer […]

Proud to be a Book Hog!

The Book Hog by Greg Pizzoli

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The Book Hog has a particularly odd cover that at first made me think this was going to be a very weak book. It was going to have a particular story (slapstick for no reason).  However, I did enjoy it.  And while the artwork is still not my thing, it has a certain charm to that works well with the story. Greg Pizzoli has created a book about how one Hog is a Book Hog. He loves books. Loves the way they smell. The way […]

The Book is more Interesting than the Content

The Enemies of Books by William Blades

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I picked this book up in an antique bookstore in Tokyo. I bought it mostly for the title, expecting a history of censorship, which is a topic I’ve always been interested in. What I got was more literally interpretation of enemies. Blades covers fire, water, vermin and dust as if they are free thinking enemies actively planning the destruction of books. His focus is entirely on the books as items that carry knowledge and not as special items in themselves. He says, “The value of […]



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