Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“We all recognize a likeness of Shakespeare the instant we see one, and yet we don’t really know what he looked like. It is like this with nearly every aspect of his life and character: He is at once the best known and least known of figures.”

Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson

by 4 Comments

There is a lot to say about Shakespeare, but there is not a lot to know. Bill Bryson, everyone’s favorite kindly uncle, lays the facts bare while gently chiding all of the (mostly bonkers) “hopeful suppositions” that have been presented as facts by well-meaning and often obsessed fans, historians, and scholars. Bryson, himself an acolyte at the altar of Shakespeare, paints a bright and brisk portrait of the man that we know to be Shakespeare. We know very few things about him; there are only […]

Topical

Zone One by Colson Whitehead

by Leave a Comment

I love New York City. It’s why I frequently read books that are set there. I could go into all the reasons why but if you love New York City too, you probably know ’em. And if you don’t, that’s cool, it’s not for everyone. Obviously, New York City is not right now what it normally is due to the coronavirus shutdown. It’s painful for me to consider as I know the city has so much life in it. Human life yes but also the […]

“It is visceral, it is personal, it is gleeful, and it is triumphant”

Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel M. Lavery

by 8 Comments

While explaining to a group of medievalists his feelings on reading pieces that are older than a hundred years old, Daniel states ‘ I feel a profound sense of triumph and superiority over the author’ I said, ‘because they are foolish enough to be dead, while I am young and gloriously alive. Not because I think their ideas are outdated or anything like that. It has nothing to do with how they think, or how we see the world differently. It is visceral, it is […]

Freaks, Geeks, and Automobiles

Role Models by John Waters

by 3 Comments

Oooh mama, this is not for the faint of heart! If you aren’t already a fan of John Waters and his coterie of misfits and outsiders then this is NOT the place to start! I first became aware of John Waters through the 1990 film Cry-Baby. It used to be on TV fairly frequently in the late 90s/early Aughts, and I would secretly watch bits and pieces of it when my parents weren’t in the room. I had the “flashback” button on the remote primed and […]

Short reads to finish off my reading year (and help me to finally complete my double Cannonball)

Night of the Scoundrel by Kelly Bowen

The Monsters We Deserve by Marcus Sedgwick

A Match Made for Thanksgiving by Jackie Lau

A Second-Chance Road Trip for Christmas by Jackie Lau

by 6 Comments

Night of the Scoundrel by Kelly Bowen Rating: 4 stars In this novella which concludes Kelly Bowen’s The Devils of Dover series, we finally find out more about the mysterious King, who has been popping up in Bowen’s books for a long time. A shadowy London crime lord with connections to smuggling, art forgery, theft and all sorts of other untoward business, he is not a man to cross. He discovers that a man he believed to be dead, a man who ruined his childhood and set him […]

“It would please him well enough to amount to no more in the end than a single great organ of detection, reaching into blankness for a clue.”

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

by Leave a Comment

Not what I was expecting! Actually, I’m not sure I was expecting anything? This little novella is Chabon’s homage to Sherlock Holmes, though his “old man” is never actually named in the story. It’s 1944, and our old man who may or may not definitely be a retired Sherlock Holmes, is living in Sussex, keeping his bees, and coming to terms with old age and a world that has moved on. This part of the story worked extremely well for me. It was so poignant […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo