Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

See Jane. She has a red dress. She wants to play.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

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CBR11bingo: Own Voices I struggled for quite some time trying to decide what to read for CBR11 Bingo’s center square. I’m so glad that I finally landed on Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, not just because it’s a book I definitely should have read by now, but because it’s moving and beautiful and painful. I expected The Bluest Eye to be powerful; I didn’t expect it to be poetic. This novel tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, a young African American girl growing up in […]

An army doctor walks into a bar. . .

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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CBR11bingo: Classics Have you ever gotten super into a television show in its second or third season, so you went back to watch it from the beginning so you could see what you missed, and then realized, “Huh. If I’d actually tried watching this from the pilot episode, I might not have been so interested”? (I’m looking at you, X-Files.) A Study in Scarlet is sort of like that. Few works of literary fiction have spawned as many retellings, homages, and–dare I say–fantasies (and now […]

You can die from constipation. Just ask Elvis Presley’s doctor.

Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach

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CBR11bingo: Science If you do a Google search for “how did Elvis Presley die,” most answers will mention prescription drugs and cardiac arrest. Until I read Gulp, I hadn’t heard that the King had what’s known as a megacolon, which is exactly what it sounds like: a big-ass large intestine. According to his personal physician George Nichopoulos, the condition gave Elvis such terrible constipation that Nichopoulous had to administer laxatives and enemas on an almost daily basis. Whether the condition was the result of genetics […]

Eight things I hated about this book and one thing I liked

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

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CBR11bingo: Pajiba BINGO: Remix, PAJIBA, Two Heads Are Better Than One, I LOVE THIS, Cannonballer Says In 1962, a boat arrives at Porto Vergogna on the Italian coast carrying Dee Moray, a dying actress. The beautiful young woman is greeted by Pasquale Tursi, the (even younger) owner of the only hotel in the tiny village. Over just a few days, the pair, one American and one Italian, form a deep emotional connection. Circumstances keep them apart until, fifty years later, Pasquale sets off to find […]

“The particular power of the whodunnit” multiplied by 2

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

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CBR11bingo: Cannonballer Says Not long ago I announced that I had “discovered” Anthony Horowitz. What I failed to mention is that what first put him on my radar was a review by badkittyuno of the sensational meta-mystery Magpie Murders. At the time, I noted, “This sounds right up my alley!” and yes, indeed, it was. This is the fourth novel by Horowitz that I’ve read, yet somehow he continues to exceed my expectations. Magpie Murders begins with Susan Ryeland, Head of Fiction at Cloverleaf Books, sitting […]

In which I get my husband to co-review this bit of fluff with me

Rumpole and the Reign of Terror by John Mortimer

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CBR11bingo: Two heads are better than one Allow me to introduce my husband, Peter! He is an avid reader but isn’t part of this community (yet). I’m working on him. A little background about the book: You may have heard of a British TV show called Rumpole of the Bailey, about a barrister named Horace Rumpole who defends various clients (the Old Bailey being the main criminal court in London). The creator is one John Mortimer, also a British barrister. I had never seen the […]



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