Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

My friend wrote a book and it’s really good! Why did it take me so long to read it?

Hot Rabbi by Aviva Blakeman

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CBR14 Bingo: Hot (hot features in the title, and a lot of the contents are also decidedly spicy) Official book description: For fifteen years, Shoshana Goldman has avoided her childhood synagogue. Her successful custom-furniture store keeps her busy enough, and the synagogue brings bad memories not peace. It will take nothing short of a minor miracle to change her mind. Intrigued by her friends’ convictions that the new “hot Rabbi” is that minor miracle, Shoshana agrees to attend a service. It’s only one service, right? […]

“Dear diary, today I met a woman wearing too many buttons who does not understand what a metaphor is”

Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn

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CBR14 Bingo: Fonts (Meg’s whole livelihood involves lettering, fonts, and calligraphy. Also, this was the first book on my TBR I could think of when I saw the bingo prompt.) Meg Mackworth is known as “the Planner of Park Slope” and uses her hand lettering skills and creativity to design custom journals and planners for the rich and influential in New York City. Lately, she’s really feeling the pressure of all the work and suffering from a creative block – not exactly a good thing […]

Even Dame Agatha phoned one in now and then

Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie

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CBR14 BINGO: Elephant, because it’s right there in the name Double BINGO! Diagonal: Snake, Adapt, Star, Bird, Elephant 4 corners and center: Snake, Bodies, Gaslight, Elephant, Star Agatha Christie, why can’t I quit you? Even though I realized in recent years that Christie’s writing was not the great literature I thought it was when I was 12 years old, I still find comfort in the familiar characters and, dang it, even if she doesn’t give you much in the way of character development and dialogue, […]

“You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don’t know how to answer that, because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. … You are allowed to just live.” – Bingo #3!

A Psalm for the Wild-built by Becky Chambers

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CBR14 Bingo: “Cozy” – This book is like a warm, reassuring hug. I first read A Psalm for the Wild-Built in December 2021.  This is a reread in preparation for A Prayer for the Crown-Shy.  The first time reading A Psalm for the Wild-Built, I was blown away.  Chamber’s evocative writing, meditations on purpose and our place within the natural world, along with the depictions of the soothing powers of tea spoke directly to me.  A Psalm for the Wild-Built was just as affective the second time as […]

Infused with humanity

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

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CBR 14 BINGO: Star, because it takes place mostly in space BINGO: Gaslight, Scandal, Star, Monster, Bodies My experience with Ray Bradbury up to this point has been limited to Fahrenheit 451, which is a top-notch novel–at least, I remember it being so when I read it, oh, thirty years ago. Having picked up The Martian Chronicles, I’m ashamed that I’ve neglected Bradbury for so long. A science fiction writer with broad appeal, Bradbury infuses every story, even those about Martians, with humanity. The Martian […]

Nightmares, just in time for Halloween

The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

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CBR14 BINGO: Gaslight, because Trump BINGO: Snake, Minds, Series, Cozy, Gaslight I make it a habit not to read books about politics, especially books about Donald Trump, because my sanity can only withstand so much. However, the “gaslight” category got me thinking about maybe breaking that rule. I had a copy of The Fifth Risk on my shelf, and I figured if anybody could get me through this, it would be financial journalist and nonfiction author of The Big Short and Moneyball, Michael Lewis. The Fifth […]



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