Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Breuckelen

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson

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I rarely read the afterward in an author’s book. Usually it’s because I’m too excited to get started on the next book to really care. But I enjoyed Pineapple Street so much, I raced to the afterward because I wanted to see what inspired her to write the book. Reading it amused me because I think the book she produced was one her brain wrote as opposed to the one her heart thought she was writing. And that’s perfectly fine. According to Jackson, she was inspired by […]

Dying’s not so bad. At least I won’t have to answer the telephone.

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast

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Bingo: New (new author to me) This graphic novel is Roz Chast’s memoir about her parents’ aging and eventual death. It’s a dark topic! But the book itself is highly entertaining. Chast’s parents, George and Elizabeth, lived their entire lives in Brooklyn. Chast was born fairly late into their marriage, after they suffered a stillbirth several years before her birth. One day, when her parents were in their 80s, her mother fell. This was the beginning of a downward slope in health for both of […]

A magical love letter to NYC

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

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New York City has been born as a great city of the world and she has chosen her avatar. This happens from time to time as enough people and ideas coalesce in one spot. It happened to Rio de Janerio, to Hong Kong, to London, and many more. And now it’s happening to New York. Except this time, one single person is not embodying the entire city like has always been the case. Instead there is an additional avatar for each of the five boroughs […]

Merry Christmas!

The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem

The Girl With the Long Green Heart by Lawrence Block

Cold Shot to the Heart by Wallace Stroby

Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women's Football League by Britni de la Cretaz and Lyndsey D'Arcangelo

All Her Little Secrets by Wanda M. Morris

Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortune and Misfortune of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty by Jonathan Pearson

The Blonde on the Street Corner by David Goodis

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Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! Having been busy with Christmas prep, avoiding Delta and Omicron, and other various things, I haven’t had the time to write long, 250+ reviews for these books. I figured I’d just cram them all here since I know I won’t finish Robert Caro’s Master of the Senate before New Year’s Eve. The Fortress of Solitude *** This clears the 3-star threshold but just barely. I appreciate what Lethem is trying to do here and I usually enjoy his work. But this was a […]

Waiting to Die

Shoot the Moonlight Out by William Boyle

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William Boyle has done it again. I don’t know if he’ll ever write anything as delightfully manic as A Friend Is A Gift You Give Yourself. But as long as he keeps doing these Brooklyn-based character driven crime stories, I’m a happy reader. This one is familiar if you’ve read his others but you don’t need to in order to dive in. They’re loosely connected so you can start anywhere. Boyle uses the template of a crime novel to create a world of south Brooklyn that he […]

But You Can’t Take the Neighborhood Out of You

Gravesend by William Boyle

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Read as part of CBR13Bingo: White Whale  And so I circle back to the beginning of William Boyle’s catalog, with his new one Shoot the Moonlight Out already in hand. I tried reading Gravesend multiple times over the years. But it didn’t stick. It reminded me of George Pelecanos’ work, which I admire more than enjoy: character-focused neighborhood-centric stories in which crime just randomly happens and people get drawn in because they can’t escape their circumstances. Those books always sound like fun more than they read like it. At […]



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