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:

Postcards from the Set

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher

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The Princess Diarist is a memoir of how one role came to dominate Carrie Fisher’s career and her life. After briefly sketching her half-hearted entrance into the world of show business, Fisher details the casting process that lead to her becoming the iconic Leia Organa. She also spills the details of an on-set romance before finally going into her uneasiness with all the trappings of fame. This is the first book of Fisher’s I’ve read. She has a strong reputation on the basis of her […]

Space Oddity

The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis

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Before I’d ever read any of his books, I admired Walter Tevis for his range. Tevis is mostly known for four novels which have now all been adapted quite successfully. The Hustler, and it’s sequel The Color of Money, are about a great pool player. The Queen’s Gambit, as anyone with a Netflix account can tell you, is about a female chess champion. And then there’s The Man Who Fell to Earth. Adapted into a movie starring David Bowie, it tells the story of an […]

Deep Cuts

Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell

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Utopia Avenue comes into Dean Moss’s life at just the right time. He’s broke and newly homeless when Levon Frankland approached him at a bar and offers him a job. Levon needs a bassist for a rock group that he’s putting together. Dean’s so desperate he joins in despite the fact that there’s no one else in the band. Soon he’s joined by Pete “Griff” Griffin on drums, Elizabeth “Elf” Holloway on vocals and piano, and Jasper de Zoet on lead guitar. They are four […]

A Novel of the First Rank

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

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Around the turn of the 19th century, Dutch clerk Jacob de Zoet agrees to take a post with the Dutch East India Company with the trading port of Dejima near Nagasaki, Japan. He hopes that during his five year stint he can amass a fortune enough to impress his beloved’s father and get him to allow the marriage. A humble, pious man, de Zoet is a terrible fit for the society on Dejima, where corruption and dishonesty are the rule. Jacob struggles to get along […]

The Old Hotel

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor

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Elderly widow Laura Palfrey, unable to live on her own and unwilling to live with her crass daughter in Scotland, checks into the Claremont Hotel. There she finds a community of sorts among the other elderly residents, who pass their days in desultory conversations between mealtimes and waiting, mostly in vain, for their relatives to visit. When Mrs. Palfrey takes a nasty fall on her daily walk, she is rescued by Ludo Myers, a writer living in a shabby basement apartment near the hotel. The […]

Unstuck in Time

The Writer's Crusade: Kurt Vonnegut and the Many Lives of Slaughterhouse-Five by Tom Roston

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Kurt Vonnegut came home from World War II intending to write a novel about the horrors he had witnessed during the firebombing of Dresden. It took him 23 years and countless drafts to produce Slaughterhouse-Five, the novel that made him a literary sensation. I thought this book would be an exploration of that effort, but that’s not what it is. Roston casts about for a while between chronicling Vonnegut’s life and service in the war, summarizing the plot, and speaking to scholars about the novel […]



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