Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

It Started Off Well …

The Collector's Apprentice by B.A. Shapiro

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I have to say, I was rather disappointed with this one.  I really enjoyed Shapiro’s novel The Art Forger – it wasn’t perfect, but it had me hooked, and it was entertaining, and I wanted to see what would happen.  While The Muralist wasn’t as gripping, I also enjoyed it –  of course, a historical fiction novel isn’t going to be quite as much of a page turner as a heist thriller. In this novel, Shapiro tries to merge the two, and it makes for […]

“You’ll probably find one of those, ‘I like art’-type girls”

A Paris All Your Own by Eleanor Brown

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Of all the cities in the world to visit, none is as pressure-filled as Paris (from my vantage point, at least). I’m heading there for a weekend and it’s been a decade since I last went so I picked up this collection of essays, promising “Bestselling Women Writers on the City of Light.” I love the concept of this and I have the NYC-equivalents on my TR list (Goodbye to All That & Can’t Say Goodbye). I didn’t necessarily expect a useful travelogue but I […]

I might be getting too old for this kind of thing

Tunnel of Bones by Victoria Schwab

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Cassidy Blake is still following her parents around while they film their show “The Inspecters” (that pun will never stop irritating me), and this time they are in Paris visiting some of the most haunted areas of the city. Cassidy and her ghost buddy Jacob naturally attract the attention of a spirit which causes trouble until figure out how to stop it. Hilarity ensues. I like the premise in that it is real historical ghost history being used for this novel, as it was for […]

Finding Home(s)

Monsieur Mediocre: One American Learns the High Art of Being Everyday French by John von Sothen

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Our library provides free copies of BookPage, which is a great little advert magazine for finding new and upcoming books. I highly recommend it if you’re trying to find something new to shake up your queue. Knowledge of Monsiuer Mediocre came to me via that magazine, and after a few months of waiting for an interlibrary loan to arrive it finally came last week! I’m happy to say this book was worth the wait. Jancee Dunn writes in her blurb on this one, this book is […]

Christmas in Paris

A Maigret Christmas and Other Stories by Georges Simenon

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This is the first Maigret that I have read, though it is not the first Simenon that I’ve read. I’ve read this after watching the Rowan Atkinson version of Maigret. And those are great. This book is actually three stories – one of which stars Maigret and his wife, while the other two use characters from the Maigret series. The first story is the title story and is about Maigret solving a mystery on Christmas day when he is at home with his wife. No, […]

Je t’aime

A Year in Paris by John Baxter

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Non-fiction book for Feb 2019 My Book Box. If anyone writes more beautifully about Paris than John Baxter, I’ve yet to read them. This book is supposedly about Paris throughout the year. It loosely follows this (there are some jumps in season, time, and place) as well as a brief history of the Revolution’s desire to change the calenderer. It is best to think of this book as part memoir of seasons of his life in Paris, as well as seasons of Paris. Each chapter […]



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