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:

Hard Time

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

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CBR11Bingo: Own Voices Earlier this year I reviewed Colson Whitehead’s novel The Underground Railroad, which won a ton of literary prizes. I found Whitehead’s use of magical realism odd and a little off-putting. It wasn’t embedded into the story and thus felt unnecessary. In my opinion it detracted from the novel’s story, which felt like a shame. The Nickel Boys is radically different, though Whitehead again chooses a weighty topic as his subject matter. In spare and unassuming prose Whitehead relates the story of Elwood […]

Son of a Preacher Man

Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin

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CBR11Bingo: Banned Books Sometimes the timing isn’t right. Working my way painstakingly through James Baldwin’s breakthrough novel, I could tell that it was beautifully written, with dazzling prose. I could tell that the story was intensely personal for Baldwin. I have no quarrel with its sterling reputation and its place high up in the rankings of American fiction. But if I’m being honest, I just could not will myself to the end of this novel. After a moving opening section that largely takes place on […]

Graveyard Surf

Night Shift by Stephen King

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CBR11Bingo: The Collection The stories in Night Shift, Stephen King’s first collection of short stories, read for the most part like spec scripts for The Twilight Zone. They’re high-concept stories with dynamite premises and most of them have that signature Twilight Zone ironic ending or twist. King is great at establishing a world filled with realistic characters even as the plots themselves are bizarre and occasionally ridiculous. The collection kicks off with “Jerusalem’s Lot”, set in the vampire-infested town of King’s Salem’s Lot more than […]

CBR11Bingo: True Story

The Only Plane in the Sky by Garrett M. Graff

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CBR11Bingo: True Story This is an oral history of September 11, 2001. It is fairly comprehensive, as historian Garrett M. Graff spoke to all the major players you would expect as well as to hundreds of people who got caught up in the tragic events of that day. His sources include New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Vice President Cheney, Condi Rice, Chief of Staff Andy Card, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, and Donald Rumsfeld. He also talks to dozens of firefighters and police […]

The Ultimate Patsy

Libra by Don DeLillo

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CBR11Bingo – History Schmistory At one point in Don DeLillo’s imagined version of the Kennedy Assassination, ex-CIA agent Walter Everett, Jr. philosophizes on the art of fabricating a cover story. The key, he says, is to create a sense of unreality through conflicting information, nonsensical contradictions, inconsistencies and the like. It’s this unreality, this messiness, that feels more real in our crazy world. Truth is stranger than fiction after all, so the key to making a fiction seem like the truth is to make it […]

The World’s Worst Writer’s Retreat

Misery by Stephen King

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CBR11Bingo – Cannonballer Says I haven’t read On Writing, Stephen King’s non-fiction book about his chosen profession, but I doubt I could learn more about being a writer from it than I did from Misery. At once an allegorical look at all that being a writer entails and a gripping story in its own right, Misery is a wonder. A perfectly constructed, unbearably suspenseful, have to make it to the end of this chapter before bed novel. Paul Sheldon, an author stand-in if there ever […]



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