Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Could use more Emma Stone

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Despite having a degree in literature, I have never taken an American Lit class, so I am on a mission to educate myself.  The Scarlet Letter seemed like a good place to start as a) the stage version was coming to town and I’m a big fan of the ‘read the book first’ approach to adaptations; b) compared to some other ‘classic’ novels, The Scarlet Letter is relatively short; and c) I’m a big fan of Easy A (which I didn’t realize at the time […]

#CannonBookClub Announcement

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The vote is closed and we have a winner – A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle will be the basis of our Classic and Retellings book clubs later this year! The voting was close for most of the week, and then there was a late surge – over 40 votes in the last 24 hours – and Sherlock pulled ahead. We’ll be having two discussions, one for A Study in Scarlet on August 16th and 17th and the second for the adaptation of your […]

“I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible”

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

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Reading Jane Austen feels like coming home. Every year I tell myself I’m going to reread more, but this year I decided to be more honest about that goal and acknowledge that what I really mean is I’m going to reread Austen. She’s just the literal best. Like actually. The best. Full stop. Every time I go back, I’m just like holy shit Jane, you’re a fucking genius. Northanger Abbey falls in the middle for me in terms of favorites. Probably 4th favorite? I haven’t […]

I have now conquered the complete Sherlock Holmes.

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #9) by Arthur Conan Doyle

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I’m glad he went for one more round. I liked all of these better than the ones in His Last Bow. Because I’m fast running out of review posting time, I’m copying and pasting all my mini-reviews for this book. I will hopefully put up a real review on Goodreads HERE within the next couple of days, and also a full review of The Complete Sherlock Holmes HERE. I’m not posting it on CBR because I’ve already counted all nine books to my tally this […]

Shocking that 19th century men didn’t like this novel!

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The Awakening is considered by many to be an American classic and a forerunner of modern feminist literature. Yet when it was published in 1899, it received more negative criticism than positive, leading author Kate Chopin to dedicate her talents to writing short stories exclusively for the remainder of her life. Given that most journalists and literary critics in the late 19th century were men, the chilly reception shouldn’t be surprising. The Awakening is about a married woman named Edna Pontellier who, while spending her summer on Grand […]

Well, that was a tad dismal

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CBR 10 Bingo: This Old Thing; published 1911 Ethan Frome has been on my reading list for years, ever since I was enchanted by Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, for which Wharton won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1921. The Age of Innocence is a lovely tale of thwarted love and sadly not the book I’m reviewing today. Ethan Frome is also a tale of lovers separated by circumstances, yet not nearly as engaging as Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel. The story takes place […]



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