Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A brief history of the Soviet Union and an homage to Casablanca

A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel by Amor Towles

by Leave a Comment

There’s a lot to love about this novel: the writing, the characters, the author’s knowledge of Russian history and literature. The premise behind the novel may seem a bit fantastical, but somehow Amor Towles makes me believe it and want it to be true. In 1922, fictional Count Alexander Rostov was brought before a Revolutionary court and found guilty of being an enemy of the people. Given his class, he might have been executed, but in 1913 Rostov had written poetry sympathetic to revolutionary ideals, […]

But Do Say Something of the Cat

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

by 2 Comments

To Say Nothing of the Dog wasn’t sitting on my shelf at home, but was tucked away in a used book store in Loreto, Mexico. I had seen the book title years ago, once confusing it with Let’s Not go to the Dogs Tonight (these books have nothing in common other than Dog in the title) and for a few pesos was willing to give it a go.  The story is intentionally silly, the Coventry Cathedral is being rebuilt in Oxford in the future. The […]

All the Rage

When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill

by 2 Comments

I’ve been sitting here staring at a blank screen, trying desperately to figure out the words to convey the depth and urgency of my love for this book. Let’s start with: if I have anything to be grateful to the former occupier of the White House for, it is the uptick in feminist rage literature. I suppose credit where credit is due. Because we’ve been mad, I’ve been angry my whole damn life, but it’s just now I’m finding books that mirror my own simmering […]

“…with understanding, all things were possible.”

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

by Leave a Comment

Riddle me this: what do you create when you combine a violin prodigy, “the Queen of Hell”, and an alien doughnut maker? If you are Ryka Aoki, you create a wild, delicious, devastating, hilarious brew. Does it hold together in a tight narrative? Light from Uncommon Stars does not. Does it thrill your senses and grow your heart? It absolutely does. We are first introduced to Katrina Nguyen, a teenage trans girl, as she is running away from a brutal home, carrying her beloved violin. […]

A WWI novel both predictable and surprising

In Memoriam: A Novel by Alice Winn

by 1 Comment

In Memoriam is the story of two young men, students from the prestigious (fictional) British public school Preshute, who go off to fight in the First World War. You can imagine, if you are at all familiar with WWI literature, how this tale is going to go, and yet Winn, in her first novel, manages to create a story that is faithful to the horrors of that conflict while still surprising the reader with its conclusion. Winn, herself the product of a British boarding school, […]

A real witch is the best kind of person

A Hat Full of Sky: A Tiffany Aching Adventure by Terry Pratchett

by 1 Comment

This is the second book of Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching series. Tiffany is a young witch living on “the Chalk,” a land full of sheep and the fairies known as the Nac Mac Feegle (NMF), or Wee Free Men. In book one, 9-year-old Tiffany teamed up with the NMF to save her brother and the world from the queen of the fairies. Her witchly abilities were evident to other witches like Miss Tick and Mistress Weatherwax, who gifted Tiffany a hat. A witch’s hat is […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo