As an avid fan of anything basketball- playing, watching, discussing, daydreaming about playing in the NBA’s Celebrity All-Star game- picking a book by the NBA’s all-time leading scorer as my first Cannonball Read seemed like a no-brainer. But Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse’s Mycroft Holmes has as much basketball in it as Donald Trump has class, which is to say, none. However, that doesn’t mean the authors are out of their depth. Abdul-Jabbar and Waterhouse spin an engaging tale of Sherlock’s older brother embarking on […]
A Fight Far From Fair
If you’re a fan of Sarah Waters or Emma Donoghue (doing historical fiction), then I think you’ll like this novel—a story partly centered around Ruth, a woman boxer in Bristol in the 19th century but also following several other characters she comes in contact with—George, a gentleman with poor prospects and a penchant for gambling, and Charlotte, a wealthy young woman scarred by small pox and trapped by the men in her life. All three characters are struggling to make their way in the world—trapped […]
Life belowstairs
Quick question – can you give me the name of a single servant in Pride and Prejudice? Despite having read the book multiple times and having just finished the audio version of the book, I certainly couldn’t do it. Jo Baker has taken the classic novel and imagined what the lives of the invisible people behind the scenes, so to speak. The very essential people who wash the mud out of Lizzie’s petticoats after she’s been walking the countryside, who help the Bennett sisters do […]
A great way to end the year
4.5 Stars. What a lovely book to end (probably) the year on. The Thirteenth Tale is one of those books that’s been floating around on my TBR forever, but just never made it to the top until now. I’m so glad it did! Setterfield is clearly a very talented writer. The Thirteenth Tale has quite a complex plot, weaving together many stories from different time periods with several narrators (and a few unreliable ones). Yet, for all its complexity, it really works. Consider me a fan. […]
Ghostbusters Medieval Japan edition
I normally don’t enjoy short story collections until Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter. It’s just the right mix of adventure, comedy, fantasy, mythology, history, and drama. Yamada is an impoverished nobleman making his living busting evil spirits, ghosts, and monsters in medieval Japan. Two other characters show up through multiple stories who are both typecasts but still interesting: the warrior Prince Kanemore and the not-always-priestly exorcist priest Kenji. What makes them interesting is their interactions with Yamada because these conversations and adventures bring out details of […]
A dream turned into a tedious nightmare
So, this. This was not an enjoyable book. It is the story of author George Sand, born Aurore Dupin. I have not read anything by this historic author, and now I have the feeling that I never will, due to the fact that I dislike her so much due to this telling of her life. If this book was meant to endear the character to me, it failed. I was not sympathetic to the character. She came across as selfish, bitchy, and boring. […]
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