Jake – Page 50 – Cannonball Read 17

Amerigo!? Heck no!

The Letters of America Vespucci and other documents illustrative of his career by Amerigo Vespucci

July 3, 2022 by Jake Leave a Comment

Library Book Bingos exist for two reasons: 1. clearing my shelves of books that would have otherwise sat there and 2. challenging myself to learn new things. I don’t really like the second purpose. I prefer to read what I want to read and that is that. But this summer, all of my local libraries are doing Ocean themed bingos (boring!). One of them required a biography of a seafaring explorer. I knew little about Amerigo Vespucci, the man from which the word “America” likely […]

If The World Was Ending, Would You Save My Life?

Black Tide by KC Jones

July 2, 2022 by Jake 2 Comments

When the coronavirus burst on to the American scene in March 2020, the song If the World Was Ending was cycling through the pop station airways. Its theme of finding comfort with an unlikely person at the end of the world (presumably during an earthquake) felt appropriately melancholy, and perhaps reassuring depending on what your situation was. There’s always someone to love us and we find love in desperate moments. I don’t know if KC Jones has heard that song or not but this book felt like […]

June 2022 Leftovers

The Cage by Bonnie Kistler

Gangsterland by Tod Goldberg

Gone 'Til November by Wallace Stroby

Cover Story by Susan Rigetti

Survivor's Guilt by Robyn Gigl

The Old Man by Thomas Perry

Iron Annie by Luke Cassidy

The Drop by Michael Connelly

The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy by David Nasaw

Barbed Wire Heart by Tess Sharpe

Amateur City by Katherine V. Forrest

Booth by Karen Joy Fowler

The Fury of Blacky Jaguar by Angel Luis Colón

He Kills Coppers by Jake Arnott

Lysistrata by Aristophanes

June 30, 2022 by Jake Leave a Comment

I was dealing with work turmoil and on vacation for most of June so I didn’t get the chance to write as many in depth reviews as I’d have liked to. Which is a shame because some of these deserved a longer look; I just didn’t have the time or energy… The Cage **** I went back-and-forth on my review. I’ve been giving out a lot of 4-star reviews lately and considered docking the book for that reason since it’s very borderline. But the more I […]

What This Cruel War Is About

El Chapo: The Untold Story of the World's Most Infamous Drug Lord by Noah Hurowitz

June 18, 2022 by Jake Leave a Comment

I’ve long avoided books about El Chapo, Mexican drug cartels, and other similar subjects because I think most US citizens have an outlandish view of how the drug trade actually works. In the brief encounters with Mexican drug cartels in fiction, the gangsters are portrayed as overly-tattooed, desperately violent and almost amoral. While there are, of course, shades of that in real life, it also shows a cartoonish image as an avatar for the average North American citizen’s inability to grapple with how its racist drug […]

Narcos

The Cartel by Don Winslow

June 11, 2022 by Jake Leave a Comment

Years ago, I read Robert Andrew Powell’s This Love Is Not For Cowards. Powell, a US journalist moved to Juarez, Mexico at the time when it was the most dangerous metropolitan area on earth. He did it to follow the local football (soccer) team, learn about its fan culture and what it meant to be so devout to a team while existing in a war zone. A scene from that book has stuck with me almost ten years since I read it. Powell reports on a shooting […]

Back in the Future

The Next Time I Die by Jason Starr

June 7, 2022 by Jake Leave a Comment

I received an advance reader copy of this novel from the folks at Hard Case Crime in exchange for an honest review. Jason Starr’s male characters want you to know that they’re good guys. Really, they are. They might do a couple of not so nice things, like murder and thievery. But really, they’re good guys. They just happen to be in bad circumstances. It’s not they’re fault. Ok, maybe it is a little. But still, they’re good…hey, wait, where are you going? Starr wasn’t […]

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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