Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Jumping on the bandwagon in the middle

A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark

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I knew Cannonballers had enjoyed a book about djinn by an author named Clark, but I didn’t pay enough attention and accidentally started at book 2. It was all still easy to follow and I liked it, but I think there are a few parts that would make more sense if I knew the history of Fatma and Siti. Agent Fatma works for a magical Ministry where magic is real and djinns live peacefully alongside humans, after being let out into the world by al-Jahiz. […]

Romp Through Ancient History

Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs by Barbara Mertz

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Barbara Mertz was an Egyptologist and author; in addition to this non-fiction entry she has a mystery series under the pen name Elizabeth Peters, featuring an intrepid female Egyptologist crime solver. Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphics is a quick historical romp through ancient Egypt, beginning at the beginning (the first pharaoh, Narmer, he of the stone palette trumpeting the unification of upper and lower Egypt that is taken as the usual start of ancient Egyptian history), through to Egypt becoming a vassal Roman state (fall of […]

Everybody wants to rule the world

When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt by Kara Cooney

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Kara Cooney is an Egyptologist and National Geographic explorer with an interest in women’s roles in ancient Egypt. This book is a taster tour of the rise and fall of 6 of Egypt’s female rulers, the most famous of which are Cleopatra, Hatshepsut and Nefertiti. Before I read this I was passingly familiar with these three but had never heard of the others she features (Merneith, Neferusobek and Tawosret). The timelines covered are broad- Merneith was the first of the six and she ruled in […]

Give This The Miniseries Treatment!

A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark

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I was pretty excited to finally pick up and find the time to read A Master of Djinn. I had previously been delighted by P. Djèlí Clark’s alternative, magical steampunk 1910s Cairo. The setting is just so damned fun. The novellas I had read before Master of Djinn—The Haunting of Tram Car 015 and A Dead Djinn in Cairo— were masterful in how they managed to be so descriptive for short form works, so was I curious as to how he would adapt an entire novel into this […]

Queen of the Nile

Cleopatra: Her History, Her Myth by Francine Prose

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Francine Prose tells the story of Cleopatra (VII Philopater, if you want to be specific), her entanglement with the Roman Empire, and how she has become distorted in cultural depictions after her death. In a way, I am reading this book in preparation – I’ve got the reading of a retelling of Cleopatra’s life set in space (!) coming up, and I figured that I’d appreciate it more if I gave myself a better grounding of the historical subject matter first. Also, I’ve always found […]

From Thor to Monkey Kings

Arthur and the Golden Rope: Brownstone's Mythical Collection by Joe Todd-Stanton

Marcy and the Riddle of the Sphinx: Brownstone's Mythical Collection by Joe Todd-Stanton

Kai and the Monkey King: Brownstone's Mythical Collection by Joe Todd-Stanton

Leo and the Gorgon's Curse: Brownstone's Mythical Collection by Joe Todd-Stanton

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Joe Todd-Stanton has a four (so far) book series about the Brownstone family. They are adventurous children who have amazing times being heroes. The narrator is Professor Brownstone, a Brownstone descendent, and his vaults of books and artifacts. Well they don’t tell the story, but they help us find the stories, as each piece is linked to one of his ancestors and each has its own wonderful, far-out story to tell. The first in the series is Arthur and the Golden Rope: Brownstone’s Mythical Collection. Arthur […]



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