Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Books that come out of nowhere to become favorites

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

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 As a reader, I find few things more satisfying than stumbling upon a novel expecting nothing but a pleasant diversion and instead falling completely in love with it. My husband found A Gentleman in Moscow in a Little Free Library and took it home because the description and the cover appealed to him. (I probably wouldn’t have picked it up, though it does have a nice cover.) He described the story as “charming” and recommended I try it. We were both thrilled that I was […]

“My castle is very different from what I planned, but I would not alter it, though, like Jo, I don’t relinquish all my artistic hopes, or confine myslef to helping othr fulfil their dreams of beauty.”

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

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I did not have reading Little Women on my Bingo card, and yet here I am. A friend mentioned offhandedly that she was watching the 90s film adaptation and two of us admitted (sheepishly) that we had never read the book (I know!) so a trio book club was born. I was surprised to remember I hadn’t read this book. (Heck, when I posted my Reel review of this book on Facebook, a classmate I haven’t talked to in years said they were surprised I hadn’t […]

A Slow Burn Magic Story

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

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I’m not usually interested in historical fiction, but after reading Piranesi, I wanted to try more of Susanna Clarke’s work. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is set in England during the Napoleonic wars in the early 1800s. There used to be magic in England, but magic hasn’t been seen in centuries. Instead, the people who call themselves magicians are theoretical magicians – they study magic but don’t practice it. However, in the quest to discover why magic is no longer practiced in England, one of […]

“We shall be useful. But just as importantly we shall be defiant, occasionally ill-mannered, and completely indomitable.”

The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies by Alison Goodman

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The historical detail of this book was incredibly pleasing (the afterword notes that she submitted 2/3 of it as her dissertation for her PhD!) and I am definitely in for reading more from this series. My favorite thing from this author that I’ve read by quite a large margin. I was pretty sure going in that this was a romance, because of the cover and the ladies in dresses, but like the cover (which hides its weapons amidst the folds of a dress) this book […]

Not All Books about Books are the Same

The Keeper of Hidden Books by Madeline Martin

The Bookbinder by Pip Williams

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As my semester ended and the break began, I indulged in my usual ritual of checking out lots of books to binge over the holidays.  I hit up both my community college library (which has a stellar YA collection) and my local library. At the library, I ended up grabbing two novels from the New Reads bookshelf that on the surface had a lot in common but ultimately were very different reads. The Keeper of Hidden Books by Madeline Martin is set during World War […]

Three audiobooks narrated excellently by Kate Reading

The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Goss

Miss Moriarty, I Presume? by Sherry Thomas

A Tempest at Sea by Sherry Thomas

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The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter – Theodora Goss Rating: 3 stars Mary Jekyll finds herself orphaned and nearly destitute. Most of the servants have to be let go, and she’s sold off most of what’s valuable around the house. She hopes she can get some money by tracking down Edward Hyde, her father’s infamous friend, but instead finds a young woman, Diana, who is apparently Hyde’s daughter. The girl was raised by nuns, with monthly financial support from Mary’s mother. Diana refuses to […]



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