Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“She Always Keeps a Part of Herself a Mystery”

To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey

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Bingo Square: Reading the TBR The Snow Child was in my top five reads the year I read it.  Given that, it seems like I should have run out to read Ivey’s follow up, but I didn’t even get the Kindle version of it until January 2018, and then didn’t get around to reading it until this week.  I’m not sure if I was hesitant after the magic of The Snow Child, or if I was worried about being emotionally gutted by this one as […]

CBR11Bingo: Summer Read

An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks, Sarah Pekkanen

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An Anonymous Girl is ridiculous — it’s silly and trashy and I doubt I’ll remember a bit of it six months from now, but it was definitely entertaining and I blew through it so I’m counting this as my “summer read!”. “We all have reasons for our actions. Even if we hide the reason from those who think they know us best. Even if the reasons are so deeply buried we can’t recognize them ourselves.” Okay, let me see if I can wrangle this one […]

Your Fame Will Live, Your Glory Sung

Gilgamesh Retold by Jenny Lewis

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This is a retelling of the 4,000-year-old Epic of Gilgamesh, in which Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, abuses his power and insults the gods. The punishment he receives for his hubris subsequently leads him on a quest for immortality. I discovered this book by chance and bought it more or less on a whim, and wow, what a find. I only seldom read poetry, but this one captivated me from the start. The plot is pretty simple and straightforward, but it is all imbued with so […]

CBR11Bingo: I Love This

All That Remains: A Life In Death by Sue Black

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I went through a phase as a young adult when I thought I might go to school to be a forensic scientist or medical examiner (this was when we were all watching a lot of CSI). That didn’t pan out, but I still love reading books about the profession (I Love This!). Dr. Judy Melinek’s Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner was another excellent book about the same subject. And if you liked Mary Roach’s Stiff, I’d recommend this as […]

REALLY Not My Wheelhouse

The Maze at Windemere by Gregory Blake Smith

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My boss loves having me read whatever his classes are reading so he can talk about the books with someone who’s not a student, and The Maze at Windemere ended up on my desk after he taught his Gilded Age course. We have vastly divergent tastes in books, but most of the time he’s pretty good at nailing what we’ll both enjoy…… This was not one of those times. I didn’t really know what to expect from this book, and after finishing it, I’m still […]

CBR11Bingo: Listicle

Becoming by Michelle Obama

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Back from vacation and back to reviewing! Not that there was any chance I wouldn’t read Michelle Obama’s incredibly well-reviewed memoir Becoming, but I do love that Barack Obama listed it as one of his favorite books for 2018 (Listicle!). It’s so good, and while I listened to the audio book and highly recommend that format for the lovely experience that is Michelle Obama’s voice, I also perused the hardback copy (thanks Caitlin_D!) and the pictures included there are great. “For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere […]



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