Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I adore romance trilogies where a trio of lady friends find their perfect partner, one set per book. CBR14 Bingo: Bodies

A Prince on Paper: A Reluctant Royals novel by Alyssa Cole

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CBR14 Bingo: Bodies – There is a pair of attractive bodies on the cover.  Nya discovers what pleasures her body. Is there a name for the sub-set of romance that has a trio of women friends finding their perfect partner across a trilogy?  I enjoy them!  Nora Roberts was my introduction and I devoured several.  Then there was a long hiatus of romance reading.  Cannonball Read inspired me to start seeking out new romances and that brought me to Alyssa Cole, and her “Reluctant Royals” series.  […]

Finally read this classic children’s book!

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

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CBR BINGO 14: Verse, because it’s a collection of classic children’s poetry My father likes to send me little Brain Teaser quizzes, and recently we had one about matching the covers of classic books to their titles. I told him I got all of them correct, but I had read only 7 out of 10. I jokingly blamed him for my never having read Where the Sidewalk Ends, because for some reason I never owned that book as a child. A few days later, I […]

Less about Mozart’s starling than the author’s starling, but still interesting

Mozart's Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt

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CBR BINGO 14: Bird, because there is a bird on the cover and it tells the story of a bird (two, in fact!) Although the bird didn’t appear in the movie Amadeus, Mozart owned a starling during three of the most productive years of his life, the time period when he wrote The Marriage of Figaro, eight piano concertos, and three symphonies. To be able to tell the story of Mozart’s Starling effectively, author Lyanda Lynn Haupt adopted a starling of her own. This book is a […]

Frat Boys and Mean Girls, Gilded Age Edition

House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

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CBR BINGO 14: Scandal, because heroine Lily Bart is undone by scandals The House of Mirth has been on my list since I first fell in love with The Age of Innocence a quarter of a century ago. Nobody writes the glamour and treachery of Old New York as deliciously as Edith Wharton. I’ve been putting off writing this review because I wasn’t sure how I felt about the novel. I definitely prefer it to Ethan Frome, but it falls short of my favorite Wharton. Yet as time […]

“Underneath all the laughs and the gags, it was always about one thing: survival.”

Tanqueray by Stephanie Johnson and Brandon Stanton

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Cbr14bingo Funky (I mean, look at photos of this glorious, gorgeous lady. FUNKY!) If you follow Humans of New York on social media, you probably already have some familiarity with Tanqueray/Stephanie Johnson. HONY creator Brandon Stanton featured her on his site a few years ago, and a star was re-born. Given her fascinating life story, flamboyant style, and colorful storytelling, as well as the great popularity of her story on HONY, Stanton felt strongly that he should get Stephanie the book deal she always knew […]

Vitality and Mortality

The Everlasting: A Novel by Katy Simpson Smith

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Cbr14bingo Rec’d The description of this novel was irresistible for me — historical fiction that spans four very different time periods, linked by their location (Rome) and an object in common. It reminded me of Geraldine Brooks’ People of the Book, which I read and loved a long time ago. This novel is extraordinarily clever and well written but for some reason, most likely related to my own mental state these days, I had a hard time getting into it and I’m pretty sure I […]



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