Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

this is the sort of book that requires some quiet wallowing time post-finish

The Everlasting by Katy Simpson Smith

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I picked this one up because of the cover. I saw it featured at my local bookstore and put it in my basket without even reading the blurb on the back. Had I read the blurb, I would have KNOWN that it was meant for me none the less, but something about the neon pile of bodies reached into my brain and demanded to be brought home. Unfortunately, “brought home” was as far as the demand went. It sat in my literal TBR pile until […]

May 2022 Leftovers

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Hollywood Godfather: My Life in the Movies and the Mob by Gianni Russo

Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier by Mark Frost

Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara

American Tabloid by James Ellroy

Hot Springs by Stephen Hunter

Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier

Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier

Dead Soon Enough by Steph Cha

Bullet Train by Kōtarō Isaka

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Here are the books I read in May 2022 that I didn’t get to give a full review for whatever reason. I read a lot of authors of AAPI descent; their books were all wonderful in their own respective ways… Sea of Tranquility **** Unquestionably a metacommentary on the author’s Station Eleven success in the shadow of Covid-19, it’s a beautifully written reflection on finding peace and contentment in the uncertainties of life. I don’t know that I enjoyed it as much as others did given […]

So much left unsaid

Somewhere in France: A Novel of the Great War by Jennifer Robson

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Historical fiction is one of my “go-to’s” when I need something to read, and fiction about WWI is usually grim but compelling. Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy is brilliant, as is the classic All Quiet on the Western Front. WWI lit and films bring home the terrifying reality of trench warfare and its horrifying psychological impact on soldiers who endured it. Somewhere in France looked interesting to me because it centers on the experiences of a young woman, an ambulance driver at the front. Author Jennifer […]

Way Down to Chinatown

This Is A Bust by Ed Lin

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One of the joys of reading is discovering a new author that you like and want to explore more into their catalog. I found that with Ed Lin. Wow what a book. This is one I’ve had on my shelf for a while that I decided to finally tackle. And I loved it. Yes in some sense it is a mystery but the mystery is only part of the story. The real story is Robert Chow, Chinese-American, Chinatown product, Vietnam washout, tokenized NYPD patrolman. Through […]

First contact, near-past historical science fiction.

Axiom's End (Noumena, #1) by Lindsay Ellis

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30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 2 Book 1/30 I don’t even really know what I want to say about this one! It wasn’t what I was expecting, even though I didn’t think I was going in expecting anything. Figure that one out. All I knew was that it was a First Contact story, and I liked the cover. I think I also might have known it took place in 2007. Our main character is twenty-one year old Cora*, whose father is basically an answer […]

“Words are our tools of resurrection.”

The Dictionary of Lost Words: A Novel by Pip Williams

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I would not have expected the story of the creation of the first Oxford English Dictionary to be a gripping topic for a novel, but I stand corrected. Pip Williams’ historical fiction encompasses not only the work of compiling the first Oxford English Dictionary but also events of historic importance that occurred during that same time period— WWI and the women’s suffrage movement. Many of the characters in this novel are real people, such as Dr. James Murray and Edith Thompson, but through the main […]



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