Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The girl who won’t quit

Asadora! V06 by Naoki Urasawa

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CBR15Passport country (Japan)   Manga and I have an interesting relationship. I appreciate it, and it does its own thing. But occasionally that thing has me going along for the ride.  And the series by Naoki Urasawa, Asadora! has me riding (so far) all six volumes. (This volume is translated by John Werry) While slower than the others, this is a good build-up for volume 7 (planned for October 2023). And while these “in-between novels” are a nice way to give you more information about […]

Both influential and overlooked

Suzanne: The Jazz Age Goddess of Tennis by Tom Humberstone

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CBR15Passport Own While I was on a short vacation, I finished a fictional novel of a little-known black dancer of the 1840s, William Henry Lane, or Master Juba. And I guess I was in the mood for stories of real, but not necessarily extremely famous people, because then I started Suzanne: The Jazz Age Goddess of Tennis. Which is a memoir of Suzanne Lenglen, a French female tennis player. She was known, at the time worldwide, but she was not necessarily known for her tennis […]

The man who invited a dance style

Juba: A Novel by Walter Dean Myers

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CBR15Passport I own Based on true events of a little-known dancer of the pre-Civil War era, Juba: A Novel by Walter Dean Myers is a story of race and fame. This is the story of the man who invented modern tap dance. There is a mixture of humor and seriousness to the text as well as the overall tone. There is some language used (the N word and “racoon” without the “ra”) and talk of violence that happened (in the south and even north) therefore, […]

You say goodbye, I say hello

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

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CBR Passport – new to me author (which I think makes this my 6th official CBR passport author that I’ve counted, but in reality the 13th or 14th new author I’ve read this year, I might have to go back and do some updated accounting). I will never turn down an homage to Little Women. Although I have 5 sisters, giving us two extra girls to account for, we loved the act of assigning ourselves a character. On TV, there’s Golden Girls, Sex and the City, […]

How does your island grow?

Stranded!: A Mostly True Story from Iceland by ÆVar þÓr Benediktsson

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CBR15Passport other country (Iceland) What would you do if you were stranded on a brand new, active volcano?  Well, I do not know about you, but I do not think I would fall asleep like the two characters of ÆVar þÓr Benediktsson’s book, Stranded!: A Mostly True Story from Iceland did. You see, back in the mid-to-late 1960s a volcano was created off the coast of Iceland. This brand-new island was really hot stuff (literally)! It was still flowing molten lava to the point if you […]

A bit of a mixed bag (and a complete Passport!)

The Lost Apothecary: A Novel by Sarah Penner

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CBR15passport book you own (passport complete) I bought this book a while back as part of a sale. It’s historical fiction, which I almost always enjoy, and it moves back and forth between the late 18th century and present day London. Overall, it’s a decent read, the kind of book that you could finish on a long flight or over a weekend. Its focus is on female characters struggling to deal with dishonest and unfaithful men, and women finding fulfillment in their own work and […]



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