Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness

Three Pianos by Andrew McMahon

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The first concert my fiancee took me to was one for somebody I’d never heard of before: Andrew McMahon. She told me he’d survived leukemia, and they had a Dear Jack Foundation table out front where you could sign up to be a bone marrow donor. I wound up having a good time, but I didn’t know how complicated a persona that man at the piano really was until I read the book he released late last year. When I began, I naively thought that […]

The Very Worst Theatre Kids You Know

I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche by Sue Prideaux

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  Part of the reason I decided to pick up I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche was its premise: most books written about Friedrich Nietzsche tend to focus on the man’s writings and philosophy first, and then the man second. If at all. But this is not the case for Sue Prideaux’s biography, which had—I thought at least—a rather philosophically ambivalent and somewhat apolitical blurb. This kind of took me by surprise, so into the shopping-cart it went. I was quite delighted by […]

A Family History

Seven Aunts by Staci Lola Drouillard

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Author Drouillard tells the history of her family in recent generations through the lives of her seven aunts, four on her mother’s side and three on her father’s. I’ve always been interested in family histories, because no two are the same – that, and that there are generally a lot of secrets to uncover and I am a nosy sort of person. The fact that Seven Aunts is so wholeheartedly focused on the lives of the women in the family, tracing their parallels and divergences, made it […]

Corona Days

Honor Thy Father by Gay Talese

Hit and Run by Lawrence Block

The Secret History of Twin Peaks by Mark Frost

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After two-plus years of successfully evading the coronavirus, it finally caught up to me last week. Fortunately, my symptoms were mild (vaccinated and boosted), the only one lingering was fatigue. That and family responsibilities left me little time to write reviews this past week. So I decided to put these three here instead of my monthly dump because they were all worthy of longer reviews, two good, one damn fine. Honor Thy Father **** One of the things that made The Sopranos such an excellent television […]

The King of the Nerds Falls Flat

Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons and Dragons by Michael Witwer

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Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons and Dragons tries to be a history of gaming, both general and specific, a biography, and a business of pop culture (cons, trends, geekdoms, etc) review all at once; it does not succeed. On the biography side, the subject Gry Gygax is presented with little personality other than ‘tempermental’ and ‘creative genius’ and ‘somewhat difficult’. There’s also little narrative to build and follow, mostly scattered episodes. Part of the problem is that no one else […]

Violent Delights

Truly, Madly: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier, and the Romance of the Century by Stephen Galloway

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Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier were an iconic couple in the acting industry, with their combined talent and looks. But the turbulent thread of mental illness ran through their intense romance, ultimately tearing them apart. I only vaguely know both these figures, Leigh better than Olivier because of Gone With the Wind. However, I have always been fascinated by old Hollywood romances because of how turbulent they are, and I was excited for this one. The author has a pleasant narrative voice – he is respectful of […]



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