Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Girl on the Boat

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

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I have been seeing this one all over the place but hadn’t really been interested as it seemed like a The Girl on the Train knockoff.  Although it has shades of Girl on the Train, I was pleasantly surprised. We meet our heroine, Lauren ‘Lo’ Blacklock, as she is being burgled in her London flat- she comes face to face with the thief who then locks her in her bedroom while he completes his crime and escapes.  Although she is thankful to have not been […]

How green is your valley?

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

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Wohlleben is the manager of a forest trust in Germany, and over his years in the forest he has learned a thing or two about what makes trees tick.  The Hidden Life of Trees shares a number of his insights and they are mind-blowing: did you know that trees ‘speak’ to each other through their root systems?  That they can keep the stumps of relatives who have been chopped down alive for decades?  That slow growth for most tree species is a feature, not a […]

In-laws, outlaws, common-laws

Moccasin Square Gardens  by Richard van Camp

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Moccasin Square Gardens is a collection of short stories set in indigenous communities in Canada’s Northwest Territories- the title comes from the local nickname for the dancehall in Fort Smith.  There are nine short stories in this slim (155 pages) volume, and they cover a broad genre range- from science fiction and horror stories to romance and family drama.  Because of this range, your mileage out of each story might vary- my favourite were the romance and family dramas but I’m not sad about a […]

Words mean more than what is set down on paper

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the first of Maya Angelou’s seven autobiographies (cbr12bingo #FreshStart), covering her early childhood up to the age of 16/17.  The memoir is set in 1932- 1944, primarily in Stamps, Arkansas, with a brief interlude in St Louis Missouri, and ending with high school San Francisco. Angelou’s autobiography begins with her parents’ divorce when she is 3 years old and her only sibling, brother Bailey, is 4 years old.  They are sent by train from Long Beach, California, […]

“Even though all these people were dealing in illicit activities, they each had a moral sense that their particular outlawed product was more just than another.” (CBR12 Bingo)

American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road by Nick Bilton

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I had already decided to read American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road this year before I saw the Bingo board, and the minute I saw the Money! square I knew this book had to be the book I read for it. The instructions for the square are rather straightforward: A fiction or non-fiction book about money, acquiring money legally or illegally, or following the money. American Kingpin is a narrative non-fiction recounting of how one man started a […]

“You have to live each hour as if it’s your last and each day as if you were immortal.” (CBR Bingo)

The Viscount Who Loved Me (Bridgertons #2) by Julia Quinn

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Of the early Bridgerton books I loved books three and four, really liked the first, and thought the second was okay on my first read through. The good news headline of this reread review is that I liked this book more the second time through than I did the first. The plot of the book is a bit thinner than its predecessor, but that isn’t a bad thing. In The Viscount Who Loved Me we follow Anthony and Kate as they maneuver through the 1814 […]



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