Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The girl with kaleidoscope eyes

Pájaros en la boca y otros cuentos (Mouthful of Birds: Stories) by Samanta Schweblin

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Samanta Schweblin. This is a name I have been hearing for years but for some reason I had never read any of her books before this past December. After three books, she is definitely one of my favorite writers. Well, after one book, really. As soon as I finished her story collection “Siete casas vacías” I knew I was in literary love. For me, Schweblin is Lucy in the Sky with a touch of Kafka. Her stories are surreal and whimsical but with a dangerous […]

Sorely Lacking Keanu Reeves. One Star.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

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The year is 1897 and Bram Stoker is a bored businessmen who boosts his income by writing pulpy novels. The most famous of these, simply titled Dracula, was not an immediate hit, but would turn out to define Stoker’s legacy. This isn’t entirely undeserved, but outside of its snug historical pocket the novel doesn’t come across all that well. The story is well-known to nearly everyone, and I was quite surprised at how closely, at first, it follows the 1993 movie. And yet this film, […]

Things That Go Bump in the Night (in German)

You Should Have Left by Daniel Kehlman

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Hey everyone, it’s my first review for my first Cannonball Run!  Please forgive me if this is a bit rough. I picked up a copy of You Should Have Left by Daniel Kehlman at the library.  It’s a tiny volume, just over a hundred pages long.  The cover notes that it is “translated from the German”.  I am always a bit torn reading books translated from another language – it makes me wonder what I am missing, and if I’m really getting what the author put […]

A supernatural murder mystery

Iron & Velvet (Kate Kane Paranormal Investigator #1) by Alexis Hall

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Iron & Velvet by Alexis Hall is a paranormal F/F romance mystery. I’m always up for anything paranormal with a broody detective, so this was right up my alley. Kate Kane is a private investigator for the supernatural underworld of London. Even though she has a fairy mother, she lives her life as a human, only calling on her untested powers for emergencies. The book opens with a werewolf’s murder outside an elite vampire club. Kate’s called onto the case by her ex-boyfriend Patrick who basically […]

I think I’ve read this book at least four times

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The Season of Passage is one of my favorite books from my teen years. I had always loved Christopher Pike as a teen, because he felt a little more sophisticated than R.L.Stine, who was the other “horror” author for my age group. I guess I probably loved this book from the beginning because the main character’s name is Lauren, which is also my name.  It’s just a great book overall though.  You get to know the characters enough to care about them before anyone is […]

Well worth the re-read

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I first read The Age of Misrule trilogy decades ago and seem to remember thinking it was only OK, but since then I’ve found my mind often returning to some of its scenes and ideas and so decided it was high time for a re-read. Based on the first book, so far my re-read has discovered that, while it has its flaws, my younger self was far too scathing in my initial assessment. In World’s End, we meet five strangers drawn together to try and […]



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