Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

From Serf to Empress

Tsarina by Ellen Alpsten

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CBR 15 Bingo – History: This is a historical novel which in following the rise of Catherine I recreates the world of late 17th century Russia. Born a serf, Marta manages through her cunning and luck to rise through society until she becomes the mistress and later wife of Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia. This is an insane story of stratospheric social mobility, and I am shocked I hadn’t heard of it beyond Alpsten’s books. There’s plenty of shadowy corners in Catherine’s biography in […]

August 2023 Leftovers

Red Cat by Peter Spiegelman

You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters by Kate Murphy

Gangland by Chuck Hogan

Death and the Good Life by Richard Hugo

You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Alexa Coe

Britt-Marie Was Here by Frederik Backman

Occupied City by David Peace

Sleepless City by Reed Farrel Coleman

Bad Summer People by Emma Rosenblum

Run Time by Cathy Ryan Howard

Loyalty by Lisa Scottoline

None Of This Is True by Lisa Jewell

The Club by Ellery Lloyd

Not in Bronxville by Rita K. Farrelly

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Unquestionably the worst month in the calendar. Red Cat*** It’s not the writer’s fault that I just finished Robert Kolker’s excellent Lost Girls in light of the apprehension of the man they think is the Gilgo Beach murderer. But my threshold for murdered sex workers was low going into this. I only finished it because it filled a specific square for my library summer reading game. It’s not bad; the mystery is done well but it doesn’t stand out as far as the rest of […]

I only finished Part I and already knew I liked it

Ethel's Song: Ethel Rosenberg's Life in Poems by Barbara Krasner

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I know little about Ethel Greenglass/Rosenberg’s life other than “the big one” (you know that thing about her and her husband being spies for the Soviet Union). But who was Ethel Rosenberg? In Ethel’s Song: Ethel Rosenberg’s Life in Poems we see the woman from a child, to school girl, to a worker, to married woman, to finally the accused spy. We see her life, her hopes, her thoughts, her dreams, her love of singing and acting, her devotion to Julius Rosenberg, and of course, […]

‘since the play has gone down well, give us a clap/ and send us away with applause’

Emperor of Rome by Mary Beard

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CBR15 Bingo – Politics: This book examines the performance and politics of being the emperor of the Roman Empire. Many people can name an emperor of the Roman Empire even more than two thousand years after they lived, and are familiar with the stories of the excesses of their power. But what did being emperor actually entail? In this book, historian Mary Beard argues that being emperor in many ways meant playing the part of ’emperor,’ in the way that the Roman people saw them […]

Take Me To Church

The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys―and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy by James Risen, Thomas Risen

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Read as part of CBR15Bingo: politics. Frank Church was a Senator from Idaho and the famous committee that bears his name was a Senate committee investigating the dirty deeds of America’s surveillance state. I’ll say this much for The Last Honest Man: the writers know why you’re here. I didn’t pick this one up to learn about the classes Frank Church took in college or what his favorite restaurant was when he was dating his wife. I picked this up to learn about Frank Church and […]

Magical Tea Mystery

A Magic Steeped in Poison by Judy I. Lin

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I like the story, the characters, and the loose historical basis, but I don’t quite get how the magic fits into things in A Magic Steeped in Poison. Working with tea and medicinal plants certainly can involve the potential for poison, but I wish there was more detail about how the magic that can allow for tea to be used for emotions, healing, or telling the future worked. I’d settled for a little more about the historical aspect of traditional Chinese medicine; there’s an index […]



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