Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Jake

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I love reading! (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Jake's Quick Questions interview.)

Jake's Reviews:

Oooooh New York…

Twisted City by Jason Starr

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After several false starts, I was finally able to finish a Jason Starr novel. The results are about what I expected. Jim Thompson, whom Starr is no doubt cribbing from here, is one of my favorite writers. He writes psychological thrillers in which characters are forced into difficult circumstances that are largely beyond their control and all of their choices are bad. No one is better at identifying the dark heart of chaos beneath what we as humans pass for order. Starr is no Thompson […]

Don’t Take The Memories

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

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The Memory Police is the kind of dystopia I like. No Hunger Games-esque confrontations with the Big Bad. No sadistic rolling around in the concept (aka “torture porn”). No forsaking character for story. The characters drive this story. The society they live in impacts them and they adapt. It’s a well-told tale. I would have loved to have read this book in its original language. I feel like there are probably subtleties I could have picked up on. But what I did get was good enough. Yoko […]

Losing His Religion

The Black Mass of Brother Springer by Charles Willeford

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The Black Mass of Brother Springer is a tough book to classify…or even recommend. A biting satire of organized religion, a send up of civil rights through the white gaze, a testimony on the consequences of fragile masculinity. There’s a lot going on here for such a short book. The book’s writer Charles Willeford is one of my favorites. He writes crime novels with a unique voice that’s tough to compare. No less than Quentin Tarantino has said that Willeford is the biggest literary inspiration for […]

Ah Memories

The Lost Night by Andrea Baartz

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Giving this one a new-author-graded-curve 4 stars. Because while there are several things in The Lost Night that don’t work, I think Andrea Baartz is a talented writer and I’d like to see more of what she can come up with. Let’s focus on the positive first. As I said above, Baartz can write. It’s rare for a first-time novelist, especially one writing a low grade thriller, to have the hang of their style but she knows what she’s doing. It helps that she’s an accomplished journalist; […]

Winners Take All

Casino by Nicholas Pileggi

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Continuing my rather unexpected trip through books that inspired Martin Scorsese films (I finished I Heard You Paint Houses a week ago), here’s Nicholas Pileggi’s Casino. I was excited to read it because: I watched the movie years ago and remember almost nothing about it. I recently watched Hustlers and people kept comparing it to Casino. I enjoyed Pileggi’s other true crime mafia tale Wiseguy, which was the basis for the movie Goodfellas So I went into this one with a lot of excitement. And it’s…fine. Just fine. Pileggi’s style is much more to […]

All in the Family

The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz

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There are books that try way too hard to charm me and often miss the mark. A Gentleman in Moscow comes to mind. I like to laugh and I like to be charmed but at a certain point, I need to feel like I’m interacting with real characters and not charm avatars. The Spellman Files walks a very fine line. It has no discernible plot and that usually leaves me frustrated. I read to read stories; stories hook me and keep me engaged. If the quality of writing can […]



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