Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Historical middle grade with unions!

The Pecan Sheller by Lupe Ruiz-Flores

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The Pecan Sheller is set during the late 1930s and follows Petra, a thirteen-year-old girl who has to leave school and get a job shelling pecans after her father’s death in order to help her Amá pay the bills and take care of Petra’s younger siblings. While working in the pecan factory, Petra makes new friends, but also is confronted with terrible working conditions and seeing many people get tuberculosis and die. When one of her new friends dies and the factory owners want to […]

Final 2024 Leftovers

1876 by Gore Vidal

Joe Country by Mick Herron

James by Percival Everett

Slough House by Mick Herron

Kiss Her Goodbye by Allan Guthrie

The Contemplative Tarot: A Christian Introduction to the cards by Brittany Muller

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Hope everyone had a wonderful 2024. Remember that while we can’t control the horrors of the world, there is joy to be found in the presence of those we love. 1876**** Didn’t hit as hard as Burr; Burr’s presence was the center of the story that made it go, whereas this book wants to highlight every major player in the 1876 election. But Vidal does a good job of evoking the atmosphere of the time: the unapologetic corruption, the paranoia of another war and the […]

Coming into the Light

The Girl in His Shadow by Audrey Blake

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I enjoyed this novel both because of its heroine, Nora Beady, but also for all the interesting details about the practice of medicine in the mid 19th century–fascinating and horrifying in equal measures. Nora is the ward of a famous British surgeon, Horace Croft, who saved her from a cholera infection that killed her whole family when she was a child.  Croft is brilliant and eccentric and that may be why he encourages Nora’s interest in biology, anatomy, and medicine, even though in mid 19th […]

It’s not too late to be in the year’s best

The Women by Kristin Hannah

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So there’s good news and bad news. Good news is, I loved this book. Bad new is that I had my top five already written up before I finished The Women, and now I have to rewrite it. It’s definitely worth the extra work though (although the book that got booted might disagree). The Women is set during the Vietnam war and follows the path of Frankie McGrath, who comes from an affluent family that proudly celebrated military service. Following the path her brother took, […]

Air Fair

Munichs by David Peace

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The first David Peace book I ever read was The Damned Utd. I had no idea I was reading a “David Peace book.” I know that sounds like a weird way to look at it but Peace’s style is so distinct in its repetition, bringing the banal to life whether you want to it to or not. I’ve heard it be described as an “occult” writing style because of the way he hides things within his story. Seems accurate to me. The Damned Utd. was good AND accessible, […]

To Vigil the Ante

Even the Wicked by Lawrence Block

Revelation by CJ Sansom

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Just as with Trump’s election last month dovetailing into subjects I read, the recent shooting death of healthcare CEO Brian Thompson by a vigilante killer coincided with me reading two consecutive books on vigilante justice. Going to review both vis-a-vis how they speak to the moment. Even the Wicked Growing up, vigilante justice was always right wing coded. Dirty Harry. Death Wish. I still remember the popular “Beer For My Horses” song in which Willie Nelson and Toby Keith talk about public hangings and “putting […]



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