Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Cause baby now we got bad blood

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

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OMG this book annoyed me so much!  The writing was great, and it was so well investigated, but the characters drove me bonkers!  To think that they’re all real people makes me even madder.  I borrowed this book from my library back in the winter.  I got about fifty pages in and was just so frustrated with it that I ran out of time and didn’t get to finish before someone else placed a hold.  Then I kinda forgot about it for a while.  Once […]

The World’s Worst Writer’s Retreat

Misery by Stephen King

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CBR11Bingo – Cannonballer Says I haven’t read On Writing, Stephen King’s non-fiction book about his chosen profession, but I doubt I could learn more about being a writer from it than I did from Misery. At once an allegorical look at all that being a writer entails and a gripping story in its own right, Misery is a wonder. A perfectly constructed, unbearably suspenseful, have to make it to the end of this chapter before bed novel. Paul Sheldon, an author stand-in if there ever […]

“Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future.”

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

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Cbr11bingo Banned Book, bingo #10 & 11 A frequently challenged classic according to ALA Slaughterhouse-Five propelled Kurt Vonnegut to fame when it was published in 1969. It has been banned in a number of school districts over the decades for language, sex and religious references. Slaughterhouse-Five is  Vonnegut’s attempt to write about his experience as a POW in Dresden during WWII, where he witnessed the firebombing that destroyed the city and caused the deaths of 135,000 people. Slaughterhouse-Five is an anti-war classic that shows through […]

Elementary, My Dear Watson

A Study In Scarlett by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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A Study in Scarlet, is the first Sherlock Holmes mystery that Doyle wrote. Although I mostly enjoyed it, it’s pretty clear he was just starting this thing out. It’s a little rough in patches. Also, while I read this when I was younger, I had completely forgotten the weird Mormon/Native American Tracker (or is he a white dude adopted by Native Americans? It’s never quite clear.) tangent he goes off on at one point.  The tangent does make me kind of want to ticket of […]

Old Letters

Letters to Phil: Memories of a New York Boyhood 1848 - 1856 by Gene Shermerhorn

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In trying to find some primary source material on the 19th century history of New York, I stumbled upon Letters to Phil: Memories of a New York Boyhood 1848 – 1856. It was right in the time period I needed, so I took a shot on the old edition. Published in 1982, it’s a slim book, and not much more than the sum of it’s parts on the surface. A New York native named Gene Shermerhorn wrote a series of letters to his nephew, who was […]

The stage is set for murder…

Last Act by Christopher Pike

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Bingo square: Banned Books (listed here). Melanie has moved to a new town with her dad after her parents’ divorce and she’s struggling to make friends. That is until she helps Susan cheat in maths class and is invited to audition for the school play. Getting the part, Melanie is suddenly surrounded by new people, all of whom have a history together. Unfortunately Melanie has a history with Rindy, the gorgeous star of the play. Over the summer they had a fender bender and Melanie […]



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