Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Take Me To Church

The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys―and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy by James Risen, Thomas Risen

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Read as part of CBR15Bingo: politics. Frank Church was a Senator from Idaho and the famous committee that bears his name was a Senate committee investigating the dirty deeds of America’s surveillance state. I’ll say this much for The Last Honest Man: the writers know why you’re here. I didn’t pick this one up to learn about the classes Frank Church took in college or what his favorite restaurant was when he was dating his wife. I picked this up to learn about Frank Church and […]

The Circle Is Complete

The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder by Lawrence Block

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Read as part of CBR15Bingo: nostalgia. This is the final book of a favorite series and it takes me back to when I began the series, as well as taking me back to a New York City that no longer exists. Fifteen years ago (fifteen!), I passed a rainy afternoon while on internship to read a Matthew Scudder book by Lawrence Block. I didn’t know it was the second in a long-running series; I had just grabbed it off a cart. It was fine. I […]

An easy summer sampler of delightful and improbable scenarios

Best Women's Erotica of the Year (Best Women's Erotica Series Book 7) by Rachel Kramer Bussel

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CBR15Bingo: Bodies Bodies CBR15Passport: Recommended to me I have Emmalita and her review of Best Women’s Erotica of the Year, Volume 8 to thank for turning me onto this collection. Volume 7 did not disappoint. I keep trying to come up with a good metaphor using chocolate but I’m at a loss. After reading the first three short stories in linear fashion, I quickly learned that skipping around a bit was more suited to my reading style. Each story is self-contained, therefore it is easy […]

Nothing Says Different Times Like Tobacco Power Plays

The Case of the Black-Eyed Blonde by Erle Stanley Gardner

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cbr15bingo Nostalgia You did what, Sergeant Holcomb?  You put Perry Mason and Della Street in separate holding cells, and then you had the both of them strip searched?  Oh, son, you just made a huge mistake.  That is so not on.  You are so going down. OK, let’s back up a bit.  Diane Regis, she with the shiner, has made her way to Mason’s office dressed in a fur coat and not much underneath.  Seems as though her employer’s step-son (she’s a radio actress, employed […]

CBR15 Bingo: You are Here

De kaller meg ulven (They Call Me the Wolf) by Zeshan Shakar

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#CBR15 Passport Challenge: Books from different countries (Norway) CBR15 Bingo: You are Here (It’s set in Norway, where I am) 15-word-review: A son constantly yearning for more social mobility tries to understand his elderly father, unsuccessfully. Official book description (translated from Norwegian by me): “Why didn’t they have more? I remember thinking after my grandmother died. They were from here, Norwegian, shouldn’t they have had more things? Those things other Norwegian parents and grandparents have, at least a simple cabin, the kind without power or […]

Himsanity

The Sense of Wonder by Matthew Salesses

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Read as part of CBR15Bingo: Oceania. The writer is of Korean descent, the two POV characters are of Korean descent, and the book is about the experience of Korean-Americans and Koreans in diaspora.  I was in New York for Linsanity. Not a fan of the Knicks but it was an out-of-body experience at the time. You were glued to your tv every night and every night for almost two weeks, it delivered. Even my father-in-law — a lifelong Knicks Hater — was inclined to root […]



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