Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Gangs of New York

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

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Cbr11bingo Award Winner, bingo #7 Edith Wharton was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for literature with The Age of Innocence in 1921. I’ve decided that Edith Wharton is one of my favorite authors, right up there with Toni Morrison and Jane Austen. In past CBRs, I’ve reviewed The House of Mirth and Ethan Frome and marveled at her artistry with words and her dissection of the American class system, particularly New York society, at the turn of the 20th century. Her novels […]

Sometimes the ones we call our heroes are the greatest monsters of all

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

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cbr11bingo Cannonballer Says/Bingo #4 & 5 I think this book has been reviewed by a few Cannonballers, most recently by TeresaElectro. It’s the introductory novel to what is going to be a fantasy series centered on the Navajo or Diné who have survived an apocalyptic event known as the “Big Water.” Rebecca Roanhorse, who is Indigenous American, has won Hugo and Nebula Awards, among others, for her sci-fi/speculative fiction. Trail of Lightning was nominated for a 2019 Hugo in the best novel category. It features […]

Reproductive Freedom and the Apocalypse

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison

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  Content warning: sexual violence, stillbirth A worldwide plague kills nearly everyone on the planet. A midwife wakes in a San Francisco hotel. (It’s practically “28 Days Later.”) She stocks up on antibiotics—and, critically, birth control—and walks into an extra-hellish hellscape. Since females experienced the highest mortality rate, the rare woman or girl that survives is a treasure. Commodity. Object. The midwife trains herself to be self-sufficient. She carries a gun. However, the key to her survival is her avoidance of other people—that is, men. […]

Bingo: And So It Begins, with free running off the rooftops of New York

Discount Armageddon (Incryptid Series Book 1) by Seanan Maguire

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Verity (“Very”) Price has more going on than you’d think. In addition to working as a waitress at a strip club, subletting semi-legally, preparing for a dance competition, and generally trying to keep a roof over her head (and those of her colony of Aeslin Mice), she’s also responsible for keeping tabs on New York’s cryptid population. Which doesn’t leave her much, if any, time for dating.  

Far and Away

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay

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Cbr11bingo Far and Away I checked the antipodes map to see what the opposite end of the world from Pennsylvania would be. Turns out, it’s in the Indian Ocean, with the closest land mass being Australia. Picnic at Hanging Rock is a classic of Australian literature. Published in 1967, the novel tells the story of three teenaged girls and a teacher who go missing while on a picnic in 1900. This fictional story is famous for being an unsolved mystery, but it is so much more […]

No, her name ain’t baby, it’s Charlotte. Sherlock Holmes if you’re nasty!

A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas

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Cbr11bingo Remix This remix of Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet is clever and ingenious. It’s a fun read with interesting and sympathetic characters, most notably a female Sherlock Holmes. Sherry Thomas does an amazing job of reimagining this classic. Those familiar with Doyle’s first Holmes mystery will recognize certain traits of Sherlock and plot points in common, but this is a story with something original to say about women, class, justice and independence. It’s also a fine mystery. Charlotte Holmes is about 25 […]



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