Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Weekend

Absolute Friends by John Le Carré

Are Snakes Necessary? by Brian De Palma and Susan Lehman

The Jedi Doth Return (William Shakespeare's Star Wars) by Ian Doescher

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I really wanted to write separate reviews of these but life is incredibly busy right now so this will have to suffice… Absolute Friends *** This is another review I’m glad I slept on. I really wish I liked it more than I did. The beginning was great: two friends making their way across the chasm of time and space in the post-WWII Cold War Europe. Idealism mixed with low class status, the desire to create a better world but lacking in power to do […]

I Got A Plan

Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency by Lou DuBose and Jake Bernstein

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In the Trump years, there was this strand of liberalism/centrism in the Discourse that pined for a Republican administration under George W. Bush. Say what you will about Bush but at least he didn’t (insert latest evil thing Trump did) blah blah blah.  To which my reply was always: Yeah no. George Bush was awful. In many (not all) respects, he was worse than Trump. And one of the main reasons was Dick Cheney. I’m one of the few defenders of Adam McKay’s Vice because I feel like it was a […]

Ladies and Gentlemen, the (reading) Weekend…

Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon

Times Square Red, Times Square Blue by Samuel R. Delany

Queer: A Graphic History by Meg John-Barker, Julia Scheele (illustration)

Widespread Panic by James Ellroy

Quarry's Cut by Max Allan Collins

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Read a variety of books close to and over the weekend. Let’s check it out… Bleeding Edge **** This is a 2021 reread and it’s better than I remember. The ending disappoints but it’s still an entertaining, prescient novel. Pynchon warned us about Too Online culture and yet, here we are.   Times Square Red, Times Square Blue **** I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t this. And I liked it! Mostly. This is like a tale of two books. It’s two essays […]

Do You Want to Win the War on Terror, or Not?

A Most Wanted Man by John Le Carré

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When the Cold War ended, a lot of espionage/thriller writers didn’t know what to do with themselves. Tom Clancy, in particular, invented new villains and resurrected old ones for the US to shadowbox with. We were the last remaining superpower and there really wasn’t anything threatening us. And then 9/11 happened. It was like plugging in an electrical socket. Overnight, there emerged a raft of anti-terrorist fiction that both purports to understand Islam (it does not) and/or the Middle East (ditto). It continues today, a […]

50 Shades of 9/11

Small Town by Lawrence Block

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I don’t quite know what to make of Lawrence Block’s Small Town.  On the one hand, Block is trying to catch the spirit of the City in the months following 9/11. The story follows a cast of characters: a cop, a criminal, and a few in between, whose lives converge due to a series of murders that shake a still shaken city. Lawrence Block is one of New York City’s great poet laureates, and I appreciate what he is trying to do with the story, even […]

cbr12bingo – Music!

Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 by Lizzy Goodman

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The House of Jealous Lovers! Yes, it’s an excellent track by The Rapture. It could also be the title of this oral history (the actual title, Meet Me in the Bathroom, is a song by another prominently featured band, but we’ll get to that). This collection covers the movers, shakers, and hangers-on of NYC’s rock “revival” in the early hours of the 21st century- and man oh man are they a petty, catty, and jealous bunch! The “speakers” of this history are a collection of musicians, […]



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