Thought Train to Pusan

Continuing with my intake of pirate-themed books and tv this year, we have Cinnamon and Gunpowder ! A delicious (haha) and fun story from the point of view of a master chef named Owen in the 1800s who is kidnapped by an infamous pirate captain known as Mad Hannah Mabbot: Mabbot has killed Owen’s previous employer, and takes him on to her ship with the intention of making him prepare for her a delicious meal every Sunday. From this basic premise we see Owen struggle to try and escape, as well as to figure out how exactly to prepare fancy meals aboard a ship with little in the way of tools or ingredients. We also see how he seemingly becomes part of the crew, and therefore entangled in Mabbot’s journeys and desire to bring down a massive trading empire which has effectively crippled the lives of farmers in various countries due to the demand of the opium trade. This novel has a lot going for it, in terms of character and action. But what I always love to see in any ...

Before now, the only novel by Jane Austen I had read was Pride and Prejudice back in high school, and to be honest I remember the film adaptations of it more than the actual reading of the novel. So in approaching Northanger Abbey , there was a bit of an adjustment for me in getting into the language and writing style of Austen, but after a bit of a curve and effort to get going at first, it became smoother sailing. I can understand why some people might find this novel perhaps a little slow in that a lot of the fun and development occurs through a great deal of dialogue and personal relations between characters, but I found it to be a very fun book, with a lot of wit in its writing and depiction of characters! Northanger Abbey focuses on a young woman named Catherine, who is one of ten children. We follow her as she travels to the city of Bath with a couple of her neighbours to take in the social life and balls, where she then meets some new friends and finds...

I am but one of a number of Cannonballers who have read The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin so far this year! And for the most part I enjoyed it, as I know some others did. Though I think the front half really got me more so than the latter half, which is not to say that things don’t all come together and create a beautiful story, but I think it really boils down to feeling more of a connection with some of the characters whose points of view are focused on earlier on. The Immortalists tells the story of four siblings named Simon, Klara, Daniel, and Varya, who, when children faced with another boring day one summer, decide to go see a fortune teller who will tell them the day that they will die. While one of the siblings is told she faces a long life ahead, the others are decidedly shorter. From there, the novel focuses on each sibling’s story one by one, and the events of their life leading to their death, before picking up with the next sibling in line: Simon...