Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Race/Horse

Horse: A Novel by Geraldine Brooks

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Cbr14bingo Time, Bingo #2 (down) This novel is set in three distinct time periods linked by a Civil War era thoroughbred named Lexington As far as I’m concerned Geraldine Brooks is one of the best historical fiction writers out there. I have read all of her novels. March won the Pulitzer Prize. Caleb’s Crossing, People of the Book, and Year of Wonder: A Novel of the Plague were all outstanding. I felt that The Secret Chord, her previous novel, was not quite up to snuff, […]

Much said beautifully but too much left unsaid

The Maker of Swans: A Novel by Paraic O’Donnell

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Cbr14bingo bird On the face of it, this novel has a lot going for it: murder, a secret society, an English manor, a man servant who has seen it all. And yet the book was quite frustrating to read. On one hand, the prose is exquisite and the premise of the plot arresting. On the other hand, O’Donnell teases the reader without providing a satisfying payoff in the end. I didn’t want to put it down, but ultimately, I felt sort of cheated. The novel […]

“What is a game? It’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It’s a possibility of infinite rebirth.”

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin is a pure delight. The best book I have read all year, and now one of my favorites ever. Zevin is the author of one of my other favorite books of all time, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, I was so excited to hear about this book especially when I discovered it was about video game designers. The story starts when Sam and Sadie meet in a play area in a hospital. Sam is undergoing treatment […]

So many monsters!

Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch: A Novel by Rivka Galchen

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Cbr14bingo Monster The cover and the title of this book got my attention, and then I read the blurb. Did you know that in 1618 Johannes Kepler’s mother was accused of being a witch? (Read more here, here and here). Yes, that Johannes Kepler, the mathematician and astronomer whose works were integral to the Scientific Revolution! Author Rivka Galchen, a medical doctor by training, took this fascinating piece of information and imagined the events surrounding Katharina Kepler’s denunciation and trial. The novel is told from […]

A tale of war with no heroes

Bolla: A Novel by Pajtim Statovci

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Cbr14bingo Serpent I found this book while on vacation at the beach. Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach Delaware, is a wonderful independent bookstore and I highly recommend a visit if you find yourself in the area. Their “staff picks” section is large and always yields some interesting reads I might not otherwise have found, including this book. Naturally, I went in looking for books to help fill bingo squares and the winged serpent on the cover grabbed my attention. This is an incredible novel but […]

“Tea had featured heavily in the past fortnight. Miriam sometimes felt her belly sloshing with it, like a waterbed”

Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner

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Scandal – a very British scandal, stiff upper lip, what will the neighbors say? I stumbled across Susie Steiner, the author of the DS Manon Bradshaw series, when I read of her death, July 2nd, in the Guardian (and, by the way, this is an enjoyable obituary, if an obituary can be said to be ‘enjoyable’! https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jul/13/susie-steiner-obituary). Steiner was a former journalist who lived with retinitis pigmentosa and succumbed, at the very premature age of 51, to brain cancer. The obituary notes that Ms. Steiner […]



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