Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Books to Film: Pal Joey and BUtterfield 8

John O'Hara: Four Novels of the 1930s by John O'Hara

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After recently reading Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I decided that I not only wanted to continue with my book-to-film theme, but keep it centered in New York City, too. That led me to John O’Hara’s  Pal Joey and BUtterfield 8. I had heard for years that the 1957 film version of Pal Joey was nothing like the 1940 Rodgers and Hart Broadway musical – Gene Kelly apparently portrayed him as a genuine no-good crumb (as Joey would say). In the film Frank Sinatra isn’t exactly […]

Free Spirit Holly Golightly, Forever a Cipher

Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

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Breakfast at Tiffany’s the book shares a lot of the same traits as Breakfast at Tiffany’s the film: charming in places, predictable in others, with some questionable and unnecessary ethnic and racist slurs. Truman Capote wrote it in 1958, but the story is set in 1943 as a young, unnamed writer (Capote’s stand-in) moves into a brownstone on the upper east side of Manhattan. He soon encounters his 19 year-old enigmatic neighbor, Holly Golightly. She proceeds to charm and repel him at intervals, while remaining […]

I still wish we’d have done this one for CannonBookClub.

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This book was an alternative pick for the non-fiction (Hollywood history-centric) #CannonBookClub, and it was my pick. I saw it and I knew I had to read it ASAP, even if it didn’t end up winning the vote (it didn’t; that honor, of course, went to Life Moves Pretty Fast, which I haven’t read yet as of writing this review). I’d actually never seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s before a couple of weeks ago, though I’m familiar with its legacy, both positive and negative. (Positive: Audrey […]

A Whole Bunch of Truman Capote

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The Complete Stories of Truman Capote I think I answered my questions about Truman Capote with this whirlwind look at most of his writing. I read In Cold Blood a few years back and I like it a lot. I think it’s really strong, but I think more than anything, it’s too rich a backstory, too big of a book, and the movie is so good that I couldn’t help but love it. I liked a lot of these stories in this collection. Some of them […]

In which I show once again that I’m probably better suited to popular fiction

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I knew a Holly Golightly once. We met in an art class in high school, and went on to be friends in college, before I fell in love with someone else. We would spend time together after class: she taught me that putting my loofah in with the laundry extended its life and kept it cleaner. I accompanied her on a modeling gig, where the artist she posed for belittled me for pronouncing Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’s name without a proper French accent. She ended […]

“Never love a wild thing…If you let yourself love a wild thing. You’ll end up looking at the sky.”

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While I was gearing up to read Fifth Avenue, 5 AM (and by gearing up I mean placing it on my library request list) when it struck me that, while I’ve seen the film numerous times, I’ve never read the novella in which Holly Golightly is based! Our unnamed narrator is reflecting on the past after an old friend calls him with news about a woman, Holly, he used to know. Holly Golightly has left her home town and reinvented herself as a society girl. She drinks […]



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