Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Reminded me of The Wire, season 4

Da vi var yngre (When we were younger)) by Oliver Lovrenski

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Nowhere Books Bingo: A book by a local author Ivor and his three friends Marco, Arjan and Jonas are a tight-knit gang, their own found family. According to Ivor, school used to be easy, until he and his friends lost interest and started making money and names for themselves on the streets. Ignoring the admonition from parents, teachers, social workers and others, they live hard and fast, not really caring who they have to hurt as long as they have each other. Their way of […]

I used to care when men called me difficult. I really did. Then I stopped. This way is better.

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

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Art doesn’t owe anything to anyone. Songs are about how it felt, not the facts. Self-expression is about what it feels to live, not whether you had the right to claim any emotion at any time. Did I have a right to be mad at him? Did he do anything wrong? Who cares! Who cares? I hurt. So I wrote about it. ― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones & The Six It’s funny. At first, I think you start getting high to dull your emotions, […]

If the “them apples” guy wrote a book, this would be it.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey

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What do Usher and St. Augustine have in common? I enjoyed their Confessions more than Thomas De Quincey’s. (Also, both Usher and Augustine were both great dancers in their prime.) There have probably been books that were more disappointing to me that Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, but I can’t think of any right now. Mr. De Quincey’s Confessions first made itself known to me through Nick Tosches’ The Last Opium Den. That book was less about opium and more about the search for something […]

Why didn’t this place have an elevator? A magical one full of morphine.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

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She could hear Darlington’s voice in her head: When was the first time you saw them? Low and halting, as if he wasn’t sure whether the question was taboo. But the real question, the right question, was: When was the first time you knew to be afraid? Alex was glad he’d never had the sense to ask. ― Leigh Bardugo, Ninth House Ninth house refers to Lethe house, the watchers and keepers over the magic practices of the “Ancient Eight” houses, or magical societies at […]

“That’s the last time I ever saw her:” Judy Garland in Decline

The Other Side of the Rainbow: With Judy Garland on the Dawn Patrol by Mel Tormé

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CBR14Bingo: Cold (the wintery chill of the sight of a full staff of people leaving a woman to slowly kill herself) While it was interesting reading about the behind the scenes of the ill-fated Judy Garland Show, this is a very sad book and it’s a grim look into the waste that can occur on the heels of abuse with no help afterwards. I think what struck me the most reading this is that Tormé never has the thought t0 get Judy some help — […]

None of us ever find enough kindness in the world, do we?

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

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To understand the world at all, sometimes you could only focus on a tiny bit of it, look very hard at what was close at hand and make it stand in for the whole. When I finish a project or some small, self-assigned goal, one of my rewards is gathering a pile of books from my TBR list, usually used paperbacks. For coming-of-age stories, this one had a ton of reviews and, when I spotted it at a half priced books, I snatched it up. […]



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