ingres77 – Page 3 – Cannonball Read 17

A selection of books from the last several months

Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan

Hell of a Book by Jason Mott

Dead Man's Walk by Larry McMurtry

Hemlock Island by Kelley Armstrong

June 26, 2024 by ingres77 Leave a Comment

I’ve been pretty terrible this year. I haven’t been reading very much, and what little reading I have done hasn’t inspired much writing. So I’m just going to throw these reviews into a box, just to remind myself that I like doing this. Y: The Last Man (Vol. 1) (3 stars) Set in a post-apocalyptic America where all mammals with a Y-chromosome (including sperm and embryos) suddenly and simultaneously die – except for Yorick Brown and his pet monkey, Ampersand. What’s left is a world […]

Oh where, oh where can my baby be?

Christine by Stephen King

April 15, 2024 by ingres77 7 Comments

It is absolutely mind-boggling, looking at Stephen King’s bibliography. Carrie (1974) Salem’s Lot (1975) The Shining (1977) Rage (1977) The Stand (1978) The Long Walk (1979) The Dead Zone (1979) Firestarter (1980) Danse Macabre (1981) Roadwork (1981) Cujo (1981) The Running Man (1982) Different Seasons (1982) The Gunslinger (1982) Christine (1983) Pet Semetary (1983) Cycle of the Werewolf (1983) 9 years. 14 novels. A nonfiction book and a collection of novellas. Almost every single one a hit, some of them are even classics. And he […]

Perhaps the most American of novels.

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

February 11, 2024 by ingres77 Leave a Comment

In 1905, Thomas Dixon’s The Clansmen: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan was published to massive sales and widespread scorn. The book was supportive of segregation, and glorified not only the Confederacy, but the Klan it was purporting to tell the story of. One year later, mobs of white Atlantans massacred African Americans following lurid and unfounded accusations made in local newspapers about the alleged rape of four white women at the hands of black men. At least 25 black people were murdered […]

A wonderful exploration of a dysfunctional family spanning 50 years

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

January 15, 2024 by ingres77 Leave a Comment

Set in Philadelphia over the course of about 50 years, The Dutch House tracks the lives of Cyril and Elna Conroy, their children Maeve and Danny, and Danny’s children May and Kevin. Cyril left the military after WWII and through a little bit of luck and a whole lot of having the right knowledge and the right time, ends up turning a couple investments into a vast real estate empire that nets him enough money to afford a beautiful mansion in Philadelphia. He buys the […]

Stats round-up for 2023!

January 14, 2024 by ingres77 12 Comments

It’s that time of year again! The database is mostly automated at this point, so some of my counts may be a little off. And, as always, the database is incomplete for Cannonball Reads 1 and 2, back before there was a dedicated space for reviews. Some blogs are now offline and aren’t available through Internet Archive or other means. I don’t think I’ll ever recover those reviews. In total, there are 53,038 reviews catalogued in the database of 30,320 individual books reviewed by a […]

The slow horror of watching your life fall apart, one terrible decision after another

Come Closer by Sara Gran

December 28, 2023 by ingres77 Leave a Comment

I had low expectations going into this book, but I was in the mood for something quietly horrifying and unsettling. I saw someone praising this on Reddit, and it was freely available on Audible. And it was exactly what I wanted. Which is to say, it left me deeply unsettled. Amanda, an architect in what appears to be a happy marriage, finds her life slowly unraveling. It starts off with a quiet tapping in her apartment that she and her husband can quite track down. […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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