Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

And you think your travels had bumps

Hakim's Odyssey: Book 2: From Turkey to Greece by Fabien Toulme

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CBR15Passport book set in and author from another country (from Syria, living in Turkey, trying to get to Greece and France)I was going to wait until I read volume three of Hakim’s Odyssey by French author Fabien Toulme (translation by Hannah Chute) before writing the review of Volume Two: From Turkey to Greece but was not sure when that would happen. And besides, Hakim’s Odyssey fills each book with enough so you do not have to know about three, you will just go to the […]

The darkness inside

Deserter: Junji Ito Story Collection by Junji Ito

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CBR15Passport book set in and author from another country Reading Deserter: Junji Ito Story Collection near bedtime is not recommended. Now, it is not so much because the stories are “scary-scary” but because they are warped! Each story is not very long but packed with stuff (and you probably realize I am not saying “stuff”).  Yes, things can be creepy, gross (after all, it is horror and somehow the black and white images are almost too realistic in their illustrated manner. I was getting old-black-and-white-1950-thriller/science […]

It was the best of books, it was the worst of books

Zerocalcare’s Tentacles At My Throat. by Zerocalcare

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I read this book. It is called Zerocalcare’s Tentacles At My Throat (by Zerocalcare). It is a book about a boy in three stages of his life. It is about him and his friends, the adventures they get into, and the screwed-up things they do. We start with Zero (or Calcare or Thingy) and his friends Slim and Sarah. They start in primary grade, go into a high school setting, finally they are almost 30. Their schooling is done in one school building (except for […]

A cautionary tale that will probably never appear on a Florida school library shelf

Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin

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CBR15Passport Different Genres: juvenile fiction  Eugene Yelchin is a talented illustrator and writer. I first became aware of his work through the brilliant The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge, and then last year I read and reviewed his illustrated account of his childhood, The Genius Under the Table. Special thanks to Black Raven for recommending that book and for giving Breaking Stalin’s Nose to me for the holiday exchange. Yelchin was born and raised in the Soviet Union and left in the 1980s. While he would […]

Love, Death, Murder, Justice

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

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CBR15Passport Book I own Everybody loves this book, the first in a series, and I am no different. Richard Osman is always entertaining whenever he appears on British TV shows like Taskmaster or Would I Lie To You, and his wit, intelligence and humor are evident throughout this delightful murder mystery set in a bucolic retirement community. The  murders and sleuthing are expertly written and the characters are completely charming. Especially impressive though is Osman’s portrayal of love amongst senior citizens trying to keep meaning […]

“Hello, Hart-ache.” “Hello, Merciless”.

The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen

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CBR Passport Challenge: New to Me author In a world very unlike our own, most people live on islands and when people die, they are not buried in coffins, but rather placed in boats and sent out to sea (like when we bury someone in the ground) or the boats are cremated. So undertakers don’t just need to know the rituals of cleaning and treating a body, there are rituals to follow and sacred words to be spoken – but they need to be able […]



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