Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Charming Kid’s Adventure

The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict by Trenton Lee Westover

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Nicholas Benedict is 9 years old and a very unusual child. He is afflicted with narcolepsy, which means that when he becomes excited or emotionally stressed, he falls asleep instantaneously wherever he is or whatever he is doing. He is extremely intelligent and observant, which is grating to the adults he is around. And Nicholas is an orphan, on his way to his newest orphanage, Rothschild’s End,  as this book opens. Nicholas arrives at a train station to meet Mr. Collum, the director of his […]

Cheating shmeating! In the mid-19th century, Harvard really knew how to rock a scandal.

Blood & Ivy: The 1849 Murder That Scandalized Harvard by Paul Collins

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Ooh, I do love a good period true crime drama. From Erik Larson’s much-lauded Devil in the White City, to Kate Summerscale’s lesser-known The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, to Bruce Chadwick’s I Am Murdered (which I reviewed all the way back for CBR5),  you take a  murder that’s at least a century old, add some period costumes, a few blue collar witnesses pitted against high-brow lawyers, and a lot of research, mix well, and you have a perfect cocktail of historical entertainment. I especially enjoy reading […]

Apparently I Am All About the Grudges

The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth

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Sigh. How to talk about this book. I can’t say much without giving away spoilers. But I can say this at least. The ending was eye-roll inducing and not believable at all. Also having the baker’s dozen of characters made it hard to follow anything that was happening with everyone in this book. Some plots don’t connect together until Hepworth tries to force fit things here and there. I started to skim some chapters because I just wanted to get to the end of the […]

Full Circle

The Last Place by Laura Lippman

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Wow. This was really good. We have Tess pulled into an investigation that has her in the crosshairs of someone that wants to show Tess how good he would be for her. That without him, she wouldn’t be who she is now. This whole book is a wonderful look at so many things I don’t even know where to start. With a case that lands Tess into mandatory anger management. With her realizing how great her relationship with her boyfriend is mostly because he’s not […]

Big City, Bad Dreams

Black Water Rising by Attica Locke

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Regarding the culture we consume, all of us have books, movies, albums, etc. that we keep meaning to get to, and want to get to, but put off for various reasons. Other things attract our attention or we make excuses or whatever. And when you inevitably get around to what you’ve been putting off, nine times out of ten you’ll wonder why you did. All that to say, I’ve put off on reading Attica Locke’s work for far too long. I made excuses too. I didn’t even […]

Strike Three! You’re caught.

Ballpark Mysteries Super Special #3: Subway Series Surprise by David A. Kelly

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Ballpark Mysteries Super Special #3: Subway Series Surprise by David A. Kelly and illustrated by Mark Meyers, is a to first base story: Mike and Kate are two sleuths and baseball lovers, that have solved several mysteries based around baseball. They are modern-day Encyclopedia Brown meets Babe Ruth. This time they need to find out who not only stole Kate’s moms notes about the book she is writing, but who has been pulling pranks on the Mets! The Subway series between the Yankees and Mets […]



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