Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Adorable child or annoying brat? You decide!

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley

A Red Herring without Mustard by Alan Bradley

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Someone on the Cannonball Read book chat asked recently for recommendations for when you just can’t focus due to various life stressors. Having gone through a similar phase myself, I recommended cozy mysteries as the genre I find easy to read when I can’t concentrate on much else. I picked up The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie when I was in Pennsylvania on a family emergency, and I decided to go ahead and read the next couple in the series (#2 The Weed […]

Two books I never read in high school

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

Night by Elie Wiesel

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 November has been a sucky month in a sucky year, and on a recent trip back east for a family situation, I found that the collection of science fiction stories I brought with me for distraction just wasn’t cutting it. Unable to focus, I did the only sane thing and decided to binge-watch seasons 2 and 3 of The Office. After Michael Scott restored the humors in my brain, I raided my sister’s bookcase, where I found a number of books that have been languishing […]

Can you imagine a life where all you have to do is summer in the Italian countryside?

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

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CBR12 BINGO: I Wish Double BINGO! Vertical: The Roaring 20s, Pandemic, Friendship, Green, I Wish Horizontal: Money, No Money, Repeat, I Wish, Violet The title of my review comes from the classic episode of The Office in which we learn about the Finer Things Club. Oscar: Can you imagine a life where all you have to do is summer in the Italian countryside? Pam: And spend time with George Emerson. That’s what I would do. That sums up why I selected A Room with a View […]

Well what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today! (CBR12Bingo: Cannonballer says)

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

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It’s kind of funny that the review that made me pull the trigger on this book was one I haven’t even fully read – This is all I saw of KimMiE‘s review until I went back and reviewed it: “I decided to read The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle for the “Cannonballer Says” BINGO square after reading Narfna’s review. Or rather, I should say, after skimming Narfna’s review, because as soon as I saw the basic premise and the spoiler alerts, I averted my eyes […]

A delightfully modern 19th century novel

Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

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CBR12 BINGO: Green BINGO (diagonal): Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Violet Note: I read the version translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, published in 2020.  When you open a book and find that it is dedicated to “the first worm to gnaw the cold flesh of my corpse,” you know it isn’t going to be your run-of-the-mill novel. I might not find that so unusual (I do enjoy my share of darkly humorous authors), though, if this novel hadn’t been originally published in 1881. […]

Wasn’t expecting a cliffhanger!

Shadow Weaver by MarcyKate Connolly

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CBR12 BINGO: Violet BINGO (4 corners and center square): Red, Music, Violet, Money, Yellow While searching online for a book to fill the violet category, I was drawn to the lovely illustration of a girl and her violet shadow on the cover of Shadow Weaver. I only wish I’d done a little research first and learned that there is a part 2 to this story, because part 1 leaves the reader with many unanswered questions. Shadow Weaver starts with an original and rather charming premise: […]



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