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:

Who Knows Bo?

The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson by Jeff Pearlman

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A few years ago, a sportswriter I like and admire named Craig Calcaterra became Twitter’s punching bag for the day when, on the occasion of Bo Jackson’s birthday, he wrote that while Jackson was a tremendous athlete, his legacy was vastly overblown by guys in their 40s and 50s who just remembered a few highlight clips and his video game avatar’s dominance in Tecmo Super Bowl. Jeff Pearlman’s The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson is a disquisition on the subject […]

Middle-Aged McGee

A Tan and Sandy Silence by John D. Macdonald

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The thirteenth novel in the series finds “salvage consultant” Travis McGee in a more contemplative frame of mind than usual. He’s been spending time with a beautiful widow of considerable means and she seems intent on making Trav husband #2. Remarkably, he finds himself at least a little drawn to the idea. McGee’s mind is changed when a man comes to see him and accuses McGee of sleeping with his wife. Travis doesn’t sense the danger until it’s almost too late, narrowly avoiding the hail […]

Going Through Hell

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

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Alice Law and Peter Murdoch are graduate students studying Magick at Cambridge University. They are both being advised by the star of the department, Jacob Grimes, a professor they fear and worship in roughly equal measures. Desperate to secure a rare job placement in academia, they would do anything for Grimes, including, as it turns out, taking a literal trip to Hell for him. When a seemingly routine Magick trick goes wrong and sends their advisor to the afterlife, Alice and Peter are each determined […]

Hands Off the Melons

Mr. Majestyk by Elmore Leonard

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Vince Majestyk is a simple man with a complicated past. He’s decorated Vietnam veteran but also an ex-con with an ex-wife and a daughter somewhere out there. But for now, he’s just a melon farmer looking to make up for last year’s losses with a bumper crop. Majestyk hires day laborers at fair wages to pick his melons, but one day he shows up to the field to find other men working the job. Majestyk is being squeezed by a local tough-guy who imagines he […]

The Hitter-Friendly Confines

Ten Innings at Wrigley by Kevin Cook

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The game was won by a home run hit by a Hall of Famer off of a Hall of Fame pitcher, and that’s maybe the least interesting thing about it. On May 17, 1979, the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs played a Thursday afternoon game in front of a half-full stadium. Neither team would go very far that season, but on that afternoon the teams played one of the craziest games anyone had ever seen. The main culprit was the wind, which was blowing out […]

Brrrruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce

Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run by Peter Ames Carlin

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For the second time this year, I’m reviewing a book about just one album by Bruce Springsteen. Perhaps Peter Ames Carlin, who had already written a biography of Springsteen (which I have not read) was inspired by the success of Warren Zanes’s Deliver Me From Nowhere, which has been adapted into a biopic coming out in a few months. His book, Tonight in Jungleland, purports to tell the story of Bruce’s big, breakthrough album, Born to Run. An immediate sensation that landed Bruce on the […]



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