Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Queer (Theory) History

Queer: A Graphic HIstory by Meg-John Barker, Julia Scheele (Illustrator)

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I tried to sneak this one in before the end of June but the library just wasn’t with me. One of the tasks in Read Harder challenge this year is read a LGBTQ history and the hunt for that book stumbled me across Queer: A Graphic History, and while this isn’t a history of queer folk (more a study of the word, theory, and the worldview) I’m glad to have read it if only to help shore up some gaps in my own knowledge base (I am […]

The Five-Hop One-Stop at the End of the Universe

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

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Well, not exactly the end of the universe, but definitely the Restaurant at the End of the Wayfarers Series! While we’re speaking of restaurants, allow me to share with you one of the best (outside of Redwall, of course) feast descriptions that I have ever come across: “grilled quickbread, a hurriedly made batch of whitefish salad, tiny wraps of grain paper stuffed with nut butter and edible flowers, and the last of his smoked eel and crackers.” So very tempting- and I can barely tolerate […]

Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn, and caldron *shrug*

The Factory Witches of Lowell by C.S. Malerich

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When I first saw this title pop up on Tor’s Instagram, I clicked “want to read” on goodreads as quickly as humanly possible. Working girls forming a union? Witchcraft is involved? A real-life New England mill city? Sisters doing it for themselves? Hell yeah, sign me up! There are Mill Girls woven into the tapestry of my family history, and I am a child and life-long resident of New England. My husband was living steps from the mills of Lowell when we met, and we […]

what happens to the torch-bearers, the candle holders, the vigil keepers?

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

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There is so much that I want to tell you about this book, but I won’t. I took so many notes, and placed so many scraps of paper between pages, but I do not want to ruin a single realization for you. Rebecca Makkai has crafted an intricately woven tapestry that you have to witness in its full glory; I do not want to give you a magnifying glass before you have had a chance to first witness the enormity of the project. The Great Believers hits […]

Damn the Man

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

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I listened to Sarah Gailey’s Magic for Liars last year and enjoyed it, but this was even better. Upright Women Wanted is set in a Wild West style world from the future, where a continuous war has torn the country apart and men dominate society. Information, the tool we use to grow and learn and resist, is tightly controlled with approved materials from the Librarians. The goal for this society is to keep people uneducated and very carefully educated. At the start of the story, […]

wikipedia with a wink

Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day by Peter Ackroyd

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Peter Ackroyd loves London. He has written novels, histories, poetry, and biographies of the people, places, and things that make (or have made) London, well, London. He approaches history with curiosity, wonder, and with an almost obsessive eye for detail. He criticizes when criticism is needed, and he allows facts and stories to breath and speak on their own without editorializing. Queer City, his history of gay life in London from the original founders through the current citizens, reaches far back into the history of […]



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