Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

He had taken in the country, and in his eyes and his mind it had been changed, marked by his own individuality, and made part of him.

Out of Africa by Isak Denison

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CBR15PASSPORT (Stamp #1: Books from different countries. In between a lot of privileged nonsense, it is a love letter to Africa.)After reading Paula McClain’s Circling The Sun last year, I was not finished with the characters. So, I picked up this book to learn a little more about the real-life folks that inspired that historical fiction. This is a classic that I had never read, made into a famous movie, that I have never seen. Well trod territory here, but I’ll give it a go. A Danish […]

Pride, Prejudice and Social Justice

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

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During my high school years, I was introduced to Jane Austen and the Brontes but for some reason never Elizabeth Gaskell. She was a contemporary of the Brontes, friend to and biographer of Charlotte, and in her novel North and South she channels both the dark undercurrents of the Brontes and the romance of Austen. Over the years, on social media, I’ve seen references to “ThorntonThursdays” with pictures and video clips but I only recently discovered that they came from the 2004 BBC series North […]

Highly enjoyable and very cute

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert

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CBR15 Passport Challenge: Books from different countries (the UK) Celine Bangura and Bradley “Brad” Graeme used to be best friends until Brad callously decided to ditch Celine and get with the popular crowd (this is Celine’s interpretation of past events, anyway). Now, every time they are near each other, they trade insults or compete academically. Their mothers are still best friends, though, which means they keep hearing glowing accounts of any accomplishment the other has achieved. One of Celine’s dreams is to become a lawyer, […]

Gripping story of resilience

Hostage by Guy Delisle

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CBR15Passport books from different countries Hostage is the true story of Christophe Andre, a Frenchman working for Doctors Without Borders in Chechnya who was kidnapped and held for three months. Guy Delisle, a French illustrator and writer, interviewed Andre after his ordeal and turned the taped interviews into a gripping work of graphic biography.  In order to place things in context I had to read up a bit on the Chechen/Russian war of 1994-96. The events in this story take place after that conflict had […]

No Code Breaking Necessary to Enjoy this One

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn

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This historical fiction is about women code breakers at Bletchley Park (Officially the Government Code and Cypher School) during WWII. The three main characters, Mab, Osla and Beth are thrown together through Mab and Isla’s arrival at Bletchley Park. Mab is from Shoreditch. She is unabashedly clawing her way out of poverty and aiming toward stability and a better life by marrying up (so to speak). Osla is a socialite, of Canadian birth but English at heart. She has stayed in London to help with […]

A Cannonballer Fav

The Governess Affair: A Novella by Courtney Milan

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CBR15Passport Genre Romance I knew when I saw the “genre” category on the CBR15Passport that I wanted to have romance in there. It’s a genre that I feel like I have overlooked, even though I did start CBR15 with a delightful collection of Georgette Heyer stories. It occurred to me that I have been following Courtney Milan on Twitter even though I’d never read any of her books, so I put out a call on the CBR Facebook page for suggestions on where to begin […]



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