Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Humans fight dinosaurs in space; don’t think too much and enjoy the ride

Steel World by B. V. Larson

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BINGO – Machinery (and my first completed Bingo!) You know those movies whose trailer you watch the first time and you think, “Who gave that the green-light? That looks so dumb.” And the second trailer comes out and you think, “Okay, maybe that looks kind of fun but still. There’s no way I’m going to see it.” And then you see a trailer one more time and finally relent to think, “Yeah, sure, that looks fun and dumb; I’m in!” That was Steel World. It was […]

In which I finally rectify having never read an American master of writing

Beloved by Toni Morrison

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[TW: violence against children, racial slurs, depictions of slavery, abuse] BINGO – UnCannon In high school I took two AP English classes. In college, I took a Comparative Western Literature course. Toni Morrison was not on any of my reading lists for those courses despite the fact that Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and that Beloved was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1987 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. Perhaps, Morrison is not read more at […]

A Goddess Rewoven

Circe by Madeline Miller

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CBR Bingo – Mythic I bought Madeline Miller’s Circe in hardback, which I almost never do. I didn’t even know much about the book, except it was a bestseller, which doesn’t always count for much. But I was happy to discover that the book’s success was well-deserved. It even made me happy that so many had read and enjoyed it—it is that magical. Circe is a compulsively readable novel about the life of the goddess Circe. I read a lot of myths when I was […]

“All any of us can do – is work to be something positive instead. That is a choice that every sapient must make every day of their life. The universe is what we make of it. It’s up to you what part you will play.”

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

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CBR 13 Bingo:  Book Club – Cannonball Book Club, I wish I had read this last year instead of An Unkindness of Ghosts Last year many of y’all raved about The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, I seem to recall comparisons to “Firefly”, and I agree!  I also saw  similarities with “Farscape”, a fish out of water story with a planet bound human now exploring space aboard a ship with aliens.  If neither of those TV shows are a frame of reference for you, this […]

Look, this book has space dinosaurs, enough said.

Wave Rider by Michelle Diener

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CBR13Bingo: The Wilds (I mean, it’s alien wilds, but seriously this entire book is mostly set outdoors) I’d read and enjoyed one book by this author before (the first in her Class 5 series) so I jumped on the chance to try out this one. A scientist and what sounds like a surfer dude running from bad guys? Sounds like my kind of thing! This is fifth in a series, but I read it as a standalone. First off, a little background. The small moon […]

Clytemnestra’s story

Helen Had a Sister: A Tale of Ancient Greece (formerly Princess of Sparta) by Penelope Haines

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Cbr13bingo Mythic I was excited to see the “Mythic” square on this year’s bingo card. I do enjoy myths and there are so many excellent re-tellings out there, including Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls, Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles and Miller’s Circe. Penelope Haines’ Helen Had a Sister, like these other novels, takes a lesser known female character from the Trojan War/Iliad and gives us her story. This time, it’s Clytemnestra (aka Nestra), a Spartan princess, older sister to Helen, wife of Agamemnon, […]



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