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:

Nightmares of the Fourth Reich

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

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Without a doubt, the best thing I’ve read so far this year. Quarter of the way through and not much comes close. As I’ve said many times, I don’t like dystopias that lean too hard into the dystopic-aspect. I like them with the axis of earth just tilted slightly; looking at reality through a cracked mirror. In other words, take scary parts of society and bend them a little to suit your story. Laila Lalami more than delivers that here. What’s frightening about The Dream Hotel is […]

This One’s A Thriller

The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben MacIntyre

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First of all: RIP Oleg Gordievsky. I picked this up unaware he died earlier in March. Or maybe I had heard it and my subconscious urged me to read it. Either way, hope he rests in peace. Yeah the “reads like a thriller” tag is accurate here. I really do need to read more Ben MacIntyre. I’ve tried with MacIntyre before and while his books are good, I need to be in a specific headspace to read non-fiction and stuff kept getting in the way. […]

Amigos

Friends Helping Friends by Patrick Hoffman

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My mother recently asked me what “noir” means in the context in which I often use it: reading and watching. I tried to explain to her that noir isn’t the same as classic mystery or hardboiled in that there’s an event that happens that permanently changes the behaviors of all persons, drawing them into difficult circumstances. But that felt like a weak definition to me. So I’ll roll with Megan Abbott’s classic definition in this interview with LitHub… In noir, everyone is fallen, and right […]

L’état C’est Lost

The Black Tower by Louis Bayard

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I greatly enjoyed Louis Bayard’s The Pale Blue Eye and was excited to pick this one up as well given how effectively he wrote his other historical mystery. And though I liked it a hair less, it did not disappoint. There has always been a curiosity amongst conspiracy theorists wondering what if some historical figures survived death. Hitler in the bunker. The princes in the Tower. And Louis-Charles, the dauphin of France and rightful heir to the throne of his father, Louis XVI. Sadly for him, he […]

If You’re Curious About the World of Anora…

Soft Core by Brittany Newell

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Note that this is suggested for people curious about the world of Anora, not people who want to read something like the actual movie. This book is likely to frustrate some readers if they don’t know what to expect. My guess is many folks will come to this looking for a trippy missing person mystery featuring a sex-worker-turned-amateur-sleuth. That’s not what this is at all. Yeah there is a missing person aspect to it and that sort of draws the character down to a rabbit hole. […]

Two Writers

We Are Watching by Alison Gaylin

Saint of the Narrows Street by William Boyle

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I finished two books this past week and enjoyed them to varying degrees. One was by a favorite author, another by an author I’ve struggled with in the past. Let’s get to the latter first since I like going in reading order… We Are Watching**** I’ve always felt cold toward Alison Gaylin’s work. She’s a very good writer and yet, there’s an emotional distance in her books that I can’t land with. It’s the same issue I get when watching most Christopher Nolan movies: yeah […]



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