Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About jeverett15

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39 years old. New Jersey resident. Fan of mystery novels, classic literature, and non-fiction about movies, television, sports, and American history.

jeverett15's Reviews:

The New Romantic

Heartbreak is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music by Rob Sheffield

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Rob Sheffield is a music critic at Rolling Stone and the magazine’s in-house Swiftie. This has occasionally caused him grief, as when his rave “instant classic” review of Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, was so diverged from mainstream critical assessment it provoked many responses saying Sheffield couldn’t be objective when it came to Swift’s work. Sheffield also maintains the magazine’s ranking of all of Swift’s songs, updating it every time she releases a new album or more vault tracks on one of her […]

For Sale, Short Stories, Fairly Used

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King

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Short story collections are always hard to review. They’re not one concrete entity by nature, but simply going through and reviewing each story feels tedious. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams presents a further complication, in that King’s conceit is that these particular stories are quite different from each other. Likening them to offerings for sale at a kooky marketplace, King dedicates each story in the collection to a different writer, suggesting that they served as an inspiration for the piece, though in most cases it […]

Off Ice Problems

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

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In a Swedish small town miles from anywhere, the only source of local pride is a hockey club that, like the town itself, has seen better days. To many of the townspeople, the fates of the two seem inextricably linked. As the factories close and jobs leave town, the talent pool of young hockey players diminishes in proportion. So it’s understandable that the town’s leaders have gotten hooked on the idea that a rejuvenation of the hockey club could spark a turnaround for Beartown as […]

Museum Insecurity

The Art Thief by Michael Finkel

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After reading a very long, fictional account the theft of one piece of art, I decided to follow it up with a short, non-fiction account of one of the most prolific art thieves of all time. Stephane Breitweiser committed around 200 thefts from museums around the world. With his girlfriend alongside to keep watch, he pulled off incredibly daring heists, carefully scouting locations, security systems, and the behavior of museum guards. But the most interesting aspect of the story isn’t how Breitweiser pulled off his […]

The 800-page Gorilla

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

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The Goldfinch is certainly not short on acclaim. It won the Pulitzer, and was ranked one of the 100 best novels of the century by the New York Times. It has the kind of premise other writers would die for: a young man visits the Metropolitan Museum with his mother, and when a bomb goes off in the building, walks off with her favorite painting. Theo Decker is the boy in question. Theo is 13 and it’s just him and his mom at home after […]

Not Quite Ready for Primetime

What's Next: A Backstage Pass to The West Wing, Its Cast and Crew, and Its Enduring Legacy of Service by Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack

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Let’s face it, sometimes fandom can be a bit embarrassing. Embracing an artist or their work can often lead to excessive, irrational exuberance and other cringe-worthy behavior. Sometimes we embarrass ourselves in our behavior as fans, but perhaps more often, at least in my experience, we are embarrassed by the behavior of our fellow fans, who take things a bit too far and, in our opinion, reflect poorly on our own fanaticism. Much in the same way a Taylor Swift fan might want to distance […]



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