52 Books. Check.
by Drew
Cannonball Read II Nov. 1, 2009 – Jun. 23, 2010 52 books. What’s next?
Categories: Cannonball Read II, News/Updates • Tags: Business, Cannonball Read II, Literary Challenges, Updates
Archives
The Magicians
by Drew
Whenever a series gets compared, in any way, to the Harry Potter series, I get nervous about it. I mean, Harry was a huge part of my life and that series holds a specific and unimpeachable place in the pantheon of literature. It has also become a go-to “we’ll sure get them to read THIS book” marketing ploy. I’ve never trusted book-marketing-people all that much but the minute “the next Harry Potter” started to be a thing, I started to […]
Categories: Cannonball Read II, Fantasy, Fiction, Literary Challenges • Tags: Book #52, Cannonball Read II, Fantasy, Fiction, Lev Grossman, The Magicians
What The Future Holds…
by Drew
Well, for those of you keeping count, we’re rapidly approaching the end of the Cannonball Read II. I’ve got about 150 pages left in The Magicians, which will be the 52nd book of the ‘year’ (nov. 1 to oct. 31) for yours truly. 52 books – that’s a lot, am I right? Luckily, my post-Cannonball Read blues will be avoided: I already know what I’m reading next! Well, actually, for those tied to my Goodreads account (to-read shelf HERE), I […]
Categories: News/Updates • Tags: Business, Cannonball Read II, D&L, News, Read Hard!, The Biblioracle, Updates
The Shadow of the Wind
by Drew
I was inspired to pick up this book after a lunch date this spring. I’d heard about it and the cover certainly interested me – but I’d never actually picked it up. Something seemed a little too “Spanish melodrama” for me. However, I was immediately sold on NEEDING to read this book when this girl uttered the following phrase: “It begins in The Cemetery of Forgotten Books…” The idea sparked to life in my head and I knew I had […]
Categories: Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Literary Challenges, Literature • Tags: Book #51, Cannonball Read II, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Fiction, Literature, The Shadow of the Wind
The Girl Who Played With Fire
by Drew
I don’t actually have much to say about this book. It is even better than The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and I am itching to read the third book in the so-called ‘trilogy.’ Yeah, I air-quoted that. Know why? Larsson, before his untimely death, had nearly finished a fourth book and had outlined a further two, with little bits and pieces written here and there. He’d planned ten books. Google this stuff, I don’t have time to write about […]
Categories: Cannonball Read II, Fiction • Tags: 5+, Book #50, Cannonball Read II, Crime, Fiction, Lisbeth Salander, Millenium Trilogy, Mystery, Steig Larsson, The Girl Who Played With Fire
There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales
by Drew
So after Cloud Atlas, I’d intended to hop right into the second Steig Larsson book and then into The Shadow of the Wind… but I needed a palate cleanser. I needed something light, something that wouldn’t require much investment – and what better place to turn than a short story collection? I’d been hearing about this collection for some time – this woman is apparently the best Russian author I’ve never heard of. Plus, I love scary fairy tales. So […]
Categories: Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Horror, Literary Challenges, Once Upon A Time IV, Short Stories • Tags: Book #49, Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Once Upon a Time IV, Short Stories, There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby
Cloud Atlas
by Drew
Hmm. What to even say about this book. It has been on my radar for a while – it won the Rooster at Tournament of Books a few years ago and it keeps coming up on lists of the most important/best books of the last ten years. Last twenty years. Last half century. And it is. It is a work of art, an intricate puzzle-box of a book that rewards a little extracurricular thought. But it is also lacking a […]
Categories: Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Literary Challenges, Literature • Tags: Book #48, Cannonball Read II, Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell, Fiction, Literature, The Rooster, The Tournament of Books 2005
The Spellmans Strike Again
by Drew
Working at Swartz Campbell automatically means a Spellman book. I mean, I read the first one over Christmas my freshman year – but I had no idea there was a sequel until I was on a lunch break at SC sophomore year… and the rest, as they say, is history. Originally I’d heard this was going to be the last in the series – and then Lisa Lutz gave an interview where she said that was all a lie and […]
Categories: Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Literary Challenges • Tags: Book #47, Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Izzy Spellman, Lisa Lutz, Mystery, The Spellmans Strike Again
Tell-All
by Drew
I love Chuck Palahniuk. He’s one of my favorite authors. I will, without fail, continue to order each of his new books in hardcover, signed and inscribed, from St. Helen’s Bookshop to be delivered to my house by the time I get home from college right around the day it comes out. I’ve been getting Chuck’s books signed since Haunted in 2005. Been reading them since I was a freshman in high school and read Survivor for that god-awful Graduation Project. […]
Categories: Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Literary Challenges, Literature • Tags: Book #46, Cannonball Read II, Chuck Palahniuk, Fiction, Literature, Read Hard!, Tell-All
The Brontës Went to Woolworths
by Drew
Review coming soon as I’ve chatted about it with my book club!
Categories: Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Literary Challenges, Literature • Tags: Book #45, Cannonball Read II, Fiction, Literature, Rachel Ferguson, The Brontës Went to Woolworths
