Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Prison of a Book

The Curse of the Marquis de Sade by Joel Warner

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CBR16 Bingo: Scandal – The Marquis de Sade lived about every year of his life scandalously, and there’s plenty of scandal that follows around the scroll and Aristophil as well. The Marquis de Sade is a divisive figure in literature, with as many people arguing for him being a visionary as there are for him being a mere maniac. But less known is the complicated journey of the manuscript of his best-known work The 120 Days of Sodom and how it came to be involved in a […]

April 2024 Leftovers

X = : Poems by Stephen Berg

Charcoal Joe by Walter Mosley

A Game of Lies by Clare Mackintosh

The Hurricane Blonde by Halley Sutton

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon

L.A. Requiem by Robert Crais

Watch It Burn by Kristen Bird

Sleep With Strangers by Dolores Hitchens

The Fixer: Moguls, Mobsters, Movie Stars, and Marilyn by Josh Young

One of Us Is Wrong by Sam Holt

The Fade Out by Ed Brubaker

The Second Murderer by Denise Mina

Blackmailer by George Axelrod

The Darkest Glare: A Story of Murder, Blackmail, and Real Estate Greed in 1979 Los Angeles by Chip Jacobs

Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith

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Happy April, y’all! X = : Poems**** This is why library book bingos are necessary. I only checked this one out because I needed to read a book of poems and I wanted to check the nettlesome “X” off the A-Z reading list. A convoluted reason to begin with and this wasn’t even the book I thought I was getting! I thought I’d get a different X by a different author. I’m glad I got this one. Some of these really spoke to me, including […]

RIP Celestin you would have loved r/Brochet

Bitter Promise by Ila Dell Youngblood

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Though Micaela falls in love with pirate’s son Dominique, she agrees to marry Celestin, the man she’s been betrothed to since she was a child. I went into this book expecting a historical romance – I was not aware that the Baroness Pontalba was a real person with a lengthy Wikipedia entry, and so that the story does not necessarily have a happy ending. In that light the way this book is written, with plenty of emphasis on the more mundane up ands downs of […]

No Vive in Le France

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman

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Barbara Tuchman is most noted for The Guns of August, her excellent take on World War I. While that book deserves the flowers it gets, this one should probably garner more just based on its ambition and scope. Tuchman is trying to capture what western Europe — specifically France — was like in the 14th century. The entirety of the 14th century. From dirt poor peasants to games of thrones amongst kings, nobles and popes, Tuchman’s view is broad and finished. I can’t think of any […]

That’s A Lotta Kings!

The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England by Dan Jones

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Yes, my find-Game-of-Thrones-in-history fetish is well known. You don’t need me to rehash it. But one thing I’m not clear on: what is the fascination people have with the Tudors? Is it because of Henry VIII? Elizabeth I? The tv shows? Because I find the Plantagenets far more fascinating. This is the story of how the English empire began to extend its greasy tentacles. Packed with enough court intrigue to suffocate a horse. And Dan Jones is an excellent chronicler of it all. Yes, there […]

When Women Play the Game of Thrones

The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World by Shelley Puhak

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I found out about Queen Brunhild through an old website entitled History Behind Game of Thrones. The article was detailed but it painted Brunhild in a titillating way as a promiscuous intriguer doing all she can to maintain her grip on power. It was supposed to compare to her to the villainous Queen Cersei. I was fascinated with the story and had recently reached out to find it again, only to discover (sadly) that the site folded. Which was doubly disappointing because there was scant enough info […]



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