Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Ending the year with a cozy fantasy prequel

Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree

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Last Winter Solstice, at our family book exchange, I received Legends and Lattes and adored everything about it!  Fortunately the follow-up book came out in time for my family to get it for me this year.  Bookshops and Bonedust is a prequel to Legends and Lattes and delivers an equally excellent story. When it was announced that Bookshops and Bonedust would be a prequel, I assumed that it would be about when Viv discovers coffee.  I was pleasantly surprised that this is not that book.  In Legends and Lattes, […]

a thousand apologies and what feels like a thousand reviews (through November 2023)

Edinburgh by Alexander Chee

The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Kindred by Octavia E Butler

Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Hinumegin er mars by Sólrun Michelsen

Trust by Hernan Diaz

How Westminster Works . . . and Why It Doesn't by Ian Dunt

Happy Place by Emily Henry

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones

The Establishment: And How They Get Away with It by Owen Jones

In the Beginning was the Sea by Tomás González

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

The City & the City by China Miéville

A History of Burning by Janika Oza

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert

Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent by Dipo Faloyin

Passion Simple by Annie Ernaux

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Forget Me Not by Julie Soto

Hotel of Secrets by Diana Biller

The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain by Brett Christophers

The Late Mrs. Willoughby by Claudia Gray

Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon

A Tempest at Sea by Sherry Thomas

Politics On the Edge: A Memoir From Within by Rory Stewart

Rivals by Katherine McGee

Reign by Katherine McGee

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

The Iliad by Homer, Emily Wilson

Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America by Michael Harriot

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

10 Things that Never Happened by Alexis Hall

The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

The Fraud by Zadie Smith

A Dangerous Kind of Lady by Mia Vincy

A Little Life by Hanya Yanighara

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

The Starting Over Game by girl_with_kaleidoscope_eyes

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Edinburg by Alexander Chee CBR15: Sex True fact, when someone British asked me what I was reading I pronounced this “Edin-BERG” and to their credit they didn’t laugh but instead asked, with some horrified sincerity, if that’s how Americans say it. It’s not! At least, not on purpose. It’s just how can the English language claim to have been invented in a country that seems to not have grasped even a shred of understanding of how the various letters in it work? I digress. This is […]

Another Cozy Fantasy

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

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I’ve been very much in the mood lately (absolutely always) for stories that feel like a mental warm hug. This being the prequel to Baldree’s lovely Legends & Lattes, we encounter our old friend Viv at the beginning of her mercenary journey. It is not going very well. Viv is very badly injured while being reckless in pursuit of a famous necromancer. The mercenary company she belongs to drop her off in a sleepy seaside town to rest and recuperate before hopefully coming back for […]

Get your D&D on without D&D

Legends & Lattes V01: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes by Travis Baldree

Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins: Volume III by Jody Houser

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If you are looking for a couple of books that allow you to get your D&D love on, but are not D&D, there are two books (well one book and one series) that can work. The first, is a novel that has been getting much attention. And I understand why Legends & Lattes V01 is a hit. Travis Baldree made a story that captures the elements of fantasy, humor and romance in a package that allows it to be accessible to non-readers and readers of […]

Younger is always dumber and wising up takes blood…and time.

Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree

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I tend to think prequels are unnecessary. I don’t know that Bookshops & Bonedust is necessary from a story telling perspective. From a soul perspective, yes, it is necessary. Legends & Lattes was about coffee, baked goods and friendships. Bookshops & Bonedust is about books, baked goods, and friendships. The book was read by the author, Travis Baldree, who is also a voice actor. I enjoyed his narration so much I may get his narration of the Legends & Lattes audiobook. (Who am I kidding, […]

“It was like drinking the feeling of being peaceful.”

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

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Bingo Square: Strange Worlds Viv is an orc who’s tired of the adventuring life of bounties and bloodshed. She’s ready for something else. Taking her savings and a magical doo-dad that may or may not bring your heart’s desire, she sets off to the city of Thune to make her fresh start. Which for Viv is opening a coffee shop. Which would be fine, if people there knew what coffee was. But as Viv starts to build her shop, something amazing happens. People show up. […]



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