Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

CBR15 Bingo: Guide (Double bingo)

A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons by Kate Khavari

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3.5 stars CBR15 Bingo: Guide (it’s right there in the title) Official book description, because I’m still reviewing books I read in JULY): London, 1923. Newly minted research assistant Saffron Everleigh attends a dinner party for the University College of London. While she expects to engage in conversations about the university’s large expedition to the Amazon, she doesn’t expect Mrs. Henry, one of the professors’ wives to drop to the floor, poisoned by an unknown toxin. Dr. Maxwell, Saffron’s mentor, is the main suspect, having […]

CBR15 Bingo: North America

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

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CBR15 Bingo: North America I’ve been hearing about this book since it came out. So many people I know on the internet and whose opinions I trust have read, reviewed and absolutely loved it. So I feel bad only rating it four stars, but for all that that the story and the characters appealed to me, there was something that kept making me prioritise other things over listening more to the audio book, and I never really fully emotionally connected with this one. There are […]

I expected too much

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

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CBR15 BINGO: On the Road, because the fig tree at the center of this story travels from Cyprus to London; also, main character Ada is on the path to understanding her family’s history, and Ada’s parents are immigrants from Cyprus BINGO: Hold Steady, On the Road, North America, Guide, Nostalgia I need to stop reading Goodreads reviews that gush over a novel, because they only set me up for disappointment. I wanted to like this novel so much more than I did, because there are […]

September 2023 Leftovers

Ex Machina, Book Five by Brian K. Vaughan

Windfall by Wendy Corsi Staub

The Big Bundle by Max Allan Collins

The Snack Thief by Andrea Camilleri

Guts and Genius: The Story of Three Unlikely Coaches Who Came to Dominate the NFL in the '80s by Bob Glauber

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Let’s please do something about climate change before it’s too late. I miss fall. And far more importantly: people’s lives are at stake. Ex Machina Book Five **** Mixed feelings on how this series ended. I think in many respects, the superhero stuff was handled better than the political angle through most of its run. That’s not something I thought I’d be saying after the first book. Making Mayor Hundred a contrarian centrist type was uninspired back then and comes off as even more annoying […]

…a voice on the radio offering a loom on which to spin his dreams.

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

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CBR15 BINGO (On the Air square: Lots about radios and radio communication) BINGO! Dwelling to On The Air This is going to be a terrible review. I liked this book too much and generally, when that happens I freeze when trying to review it. Doerr’s book won the Pulitzer nearly a decade ago. I’ve had this book recommended to me countless times and, as is often the case with books everyone raves about, I put it on my virtual TBR pile and forget about it. Why do I […]

Beauty Queen

The Enchanters by James Ellroy

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Read as part of CBR15Bingo: hold steady. James Ellroy is a favorite author of mine; I return to his work often. This is the second in his Freddy Otash series. And it features a “protagonist” in a lot of trouble.  I only found out less than a month ago that James Ellroy was coming out with a new book. I keep my ear close to the ground as far as Ellroy is concerned so I’m not sure why the delayed announcement here. But I put […]



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