Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A totally different book than I normally read

The Direction of the Wind by Mansi Shah

by Leave a Comment

I don’t remember how I found this book, but it’s totally not my style. Nobody gets murdered. I was going to say there aren’t even any missing persons or mysteries to solve, but that’s totally not true. I guess it had the undertones of “my style” of book and I didn’t even realize it. We start out with Sophie mourning the loss of her father, who just recently passed away. She’s helping her aunts clean out the house, and she finds some old letters hidden […]

Curiosity = Happiness

Alone Time: Four Seasons, Four Cities, and the Pleasures of Solitude by Stephanie Rosenbloom

by 3 Comments

“Alone, there’s no need for an itinerary. Walk, and the day arranges itself.” In Alone Time, New York Times travel writer Stephanie Rosenbloom travels solo to Paris, Istanbul, Florence, and New York. She shares details about the small, quiet moments that make up the most memorable parts of her trips: Alone, with no one at my side, I was also able to see le merveilleux quotidien, “the marvelous in everyday life”: a golden retriever gazing at a café chalkboard in Montmartre, as if reading the […]

Art History + Literary History + Paris= This Book

Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know by Samira Ahmed

by Leave a Comment

Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know by Samira Ahmed My rating: 4 of 5 stars Combining the worlds of art and literary history, this is the story of Khayyam who’s trying to find a connection between the rumored painting that Delacroix gave to Dumas and to use this research to help her get into Chicago’s Art Institute Young Scholars program.Whether you know who Delacroix or Dumas are, this is a fun read that takes you into paintings, poetry, letters, and the streets of Paris. During […]

[got me] to a nunnery!

Matrix by Lauren Groff

Heloise & Abelard: A New Biography by James Burge

The Tigress of Forlì: Renaissance Italy's Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de Medici by Elizabeth Lev

Letters of a Portuguese Nun: Uncovering the Mystery Behind a 17th Century Forbidden Love by Myriam Cyr

by 2 Comments

I thought I was going to need some time to recover from the exquisite The Everlasting, but really it flung me head-first into a literal rabbit-hole. A warren. An abbey. A nunnery, if you will. Also- The Atlantic just posted a list of books that were done dirty by pandemic releases, and OF COURE The Everlasting resides within those vaulted halls. I was immediately drawn to Caterina Riario Sforza de Medici after she was mentioned several times in The Everlasting. A distant relative of her spots her likeness in the […]

Melania Trump Fanfiction

Our American Friend by Anna Pitoniak

by Leave a Comment

(“I felt helpless,” she said. “Here it is, I thought. This is what the bargain comes down to. This is your destiny, Lara. You will be a part of this, this tragedy. And there is nothing you can do about it. Because you chose this.”) Sofie, a former White House correspondent, is astonished to be chosen to be the biographer of the mysterious First Lady Lara Caine. As Lara tells her story, Sofie comes to realize that the secrets she’s spilling out could be ruinous […]

“Everyone had strengths. And weaknesses. The important thing was to recognize them. And not expect something from someone who didn’t have it to give.” (CBR Bingo #11)

All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Gamache #16) by Louise Penny

by Leave a Comment

Through the first fifteen books in the Inspector Gamache series there is only one book I’ve rated five stars, A Trick of the Light. It’s a doozy of a book, and it dug deep into how characters cope with trauma, addiction, and stress, and any number of other forces that would separate us from our best selves. When I finished All the Devils Are Here, the 16th book in the series, I had my first impulse to rate one of these five stars since the […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo