Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“For even to listen to the story of the Trưng Sisters is, in these troubled times, a dangerous act.”

Bronze Drum by Phong Nguyen

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The Trưng sisters, Trắc and Nhi, are as different than each other than sisters can be, but they are united in one thing – their outrage at the treatment of the Viet by the colonizing Han Chinese. When their outrages grow too heavy to bear, they raise an army of women to fight back. It occurred to me while I was reading this book that not only do I know very little about Vietnam past the eponymous war (and even that mostly through the eyes […]

“And he’ll burn our horizons / make no mistakes”

The Song of Achilles (2011) by Madeline Miller

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Spoiler alerts for a Bronze Age epic poem, I guess, also content note for discussion of sex in this review. I liked this but I didn’t love it. Homer’s Iliad is about blood and fire and gods and fate, about a war that made heroes and villains into legends that echoed through the ages (and sometimes switched their positions). The Song of Achilles is about one of these heroes, the titular Achilles, he of the heel, and his lover Patroclus, and it’s…sweet? And (rather surprisingly) […]

“In these islands there is no certainty. Bring your own food, your own gods, your own flowers and fruits and concepts. “

Hawaii by James A. Michener

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CBR16 Bingo: Détente – This book is all about all the different peoples and cultures that came to settle the Hawaiian Islands, and ends at the point that they really begin to comfortably and fairly coexist. Hawaii is a beautiful place with a complicated history, having over the course of more than one thousand years been settled by many peoples from many places, all of which have wrestled over its lands and wealth and made their indelible mark. This book is over a thousand pages long […]

“To die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier”

The Gilded Ones (2021) by Namina Forna

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CBR Bingo 15 square Africa, because author Namina Forna was born and raised in Sierra Leone, on the west coast, a former British colony. It was first called Serra Lyoa, or Lion Mountain, because it was first “discovered” by Pedro de Sintra, a Portuguese explorer in the 15th century, who feared lions in the rolling of thunder in the hills around the harbour. I know this because I learned it in school, because when I was little I went to school in said hills, and […]

CBR15 Bingo: Sex (Bingo AND Cannonball)

Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey

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CBR15 Bingo: Sex (the protagonist is a god-touched masochist courtesan spy) Kushiel’s Dart is the first novel in the Kushiel’s Legacy series, which came to number six books in total. Jacqueline Carey also wrote an additional trilogy in her Terre D’Ange universe, and over the course of all of her books, pretty much explored every continent in her alternate-history fantasy world. This first book is set in an alternate historical version of Europe, set at about Renaissance times, or somewhat earlier, although the descriptions of […]

Wheel Keeps on Turning

Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

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In the last year, I’ve made it a point staying on top of the hot book du jour that caught my fancy. Most of the time, the hype is so suffocating, I have to put it down and come back to it. There’s nothing wrong with the book, but after hearing for months about how life altering it is, the expectations become impossible to reach. I usually come back to those books and wind up enjoying them independent of noise. I’m also trying hard not […]



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