Did you grow up as a reader, or was there a particular book or story that sparked your love of reading? I have been an avid reader since I was a little kid, but I do have an origin story for it! My school used to do a program where older kids would be partnered with younger ones as reading buddies, and I was a kindergartner forcing her fourth grade buddy to read picture books all year. Finally she got very fed up and sat […]

You were a previous Cannonballer, right? Welcome back! How many Cannonballs have you participated in? This is my second Cannonball, after a looooong break since my first one. I didn’t hit my first one, but I read >100 books last year without the review part, so I’m feeling good about making it this time! You’re going to be stranded on an island and can only pick one genre/author’s books to take with you. What/who do you pick? Does “farce” count as a genre? If I […]

Where did “Nannerbears” come from? Nannerbears came from years of morphing a nickname from one thing to another. When I was little, my sister called me Nana, which eventually got shortened to Nan. It was common for friends and family to call me Nan through high school and college, and that got lengthened to Nanners, and then Nannerpants, and then Nannerpuss (based on the Denny’s nannerpuss ad). When thinking of a CBR persona, I thought something more serious was needed and bears are serious, so […]

How do you decide what to read next on your TBR list? I wish I had an easy answer. In the summer, I participate in various library bingo games, which help me clear my shelves of books I would otherwise let sit there. I read only Black writers in February and I’m going to try to read only female/femme writers in March. I collect Hard Case Crime novels and make a point to read one a month. Otherwise, it’s wherever the wind (and my library […]

You read a lot of heavy stuff! (Or ‘deep’ as you call them.) What do you like best about reading challenging books? I am very interested in how people get through difficult or traumatic experiences. It’s kind of like why I watch a lot of true crime. There is something about people’s responses to adversity that make me feel more connected to humanity and my own story. Even when books don’t have an uplifting ending, I find it important to understand life in all of […]