Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Quite possibly Jackie Lau’s food-porniest book yet

Her Big City Neighbor by Jackie Lau

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I was given a free copy of this by the author. It has not in any way influenced my review. Amy Sharpe always wanted to go to graduate school, but when her grandmother got sick, she gave up on those plans and stayed in her small home town to take care of her. After both her grandmother and great aunt has passed away, she has now inherited her great aunt’s house in Toronto, and despite the fact that her entire family seems to disapprove of […]

A ray of golden light in these dark and depressing times

The Duke Who Didn't by Courtney Milan

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This was an ARC sent to me by the author. I had already pre-ordered the book, and the free copy has not influenced my review in any way. Official book description: Miss Chloe Fong has plans for her life, lists for her days, and absolutely no time for nonsense. Three years ago, she told her childhood sweetheart that he could talk to her once he planned to be serious. He disappeared that very night.   Except now he’s back. Jeremy Wentworth, the Duke of Lansing, […]

“‘You never forget a beautiful thing that you have made,’ he said. ‘Even after you eat it, it stays with you – always.”

My Life in France by Julia Child

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This was such a lovely reading experience, for lots of reasons. I felt refreshed while reading it, and afterwards. I’ve since made a little hobby of revisiting old episodes of The French Chef on YouTube because they are calming and delightful (and I can make a French omelet now!). I spent a lot of time in my childhood watching PBS because my dad was cheap and wouldn’t pay for cable, so that meant lots of Julia Child. I remember not caring so much about the […]

Another Jackie Lau that made me very hungry

The Ultimate Pi Day Party by Jackie Lau

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Official book description: If there’s one thing that might get my dad, a retired math teacher, to visit Toronto and have a real conversation with me for the first time in seventeen years, it’s a big nerdy Pi Day party. And hopefully this party—and seeing the tech company I built from nothing—will finally be enough to impress him and make him forgive me for everything I did when I was a teenager. But it’s got to be a really great party. That’s where Sarah Winters […]

“And so I decided to make a remix of flambé shrimp a la Emoni, because what better way to take a leap of faith than to set something on fire and trust it will not only come out right, but that it will be completely delicious?”

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo

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This was lovely. Just a really well-told, sweet story. Emoni Santiago is an Afro-Puerto Rican-American high school senior living in Philadelphia and raising her two and half year old daughter, who she calls Babygirl, but whose given name is Emma. Emoni has had to grow up pretty quickly with the responsibility of raising a child, going to school, and working to help supplement her family’s income. She was also raised by her ‘Buela (grandmother), after her mother died in childbirth, and her father left to […]

Highly Debatable is right

The 100 Most Jewish Foods by Alana Newhouse

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I have had an interesting run with library books lately. I have been going in for one thing and often coming out with at least one thing I hadn’t planned on. This is not a complaint, but I have to wonder if my doppelganger in terms of reading tastes may have been recently hired on there. So, on to The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List. I am not Jewish, but I do have an interest in food writing and history. This book […]



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