Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

44 Days

The Damned United by David Peace

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In 1974 the defending champion Leeds United needed a new manager as their legendary coach Don Revie was leaving to take over the English national team. In a shocking move Leeds hired Brian Clough, an outspoken critic of Leeds and their style of play. After alienating the players, the fans, and his bosses, Clough was sacked after only 44 days. The Damned United is David Peace’s novelized version of this time period. Using artistic license to imagine Clough’s state of mind during this ordeal and […]

Can You Keep a Secret – Not a secret, but not for me

Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella

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This book is outside of my usual favorite genres (post-apocalyptic, dystopian, thriller, non-fiction, speculative fiction, and the like) but I reached out to the Facebook hive mind for pre-wedding brain candy reads and this one was recommended by one, and endorsed by many, so I threw it into my suitcase. I haven’t read “Confessions of a Shopaholic” or seen the movie as it’s not the kind of material that appeals to me, but Kinsella’s book was a nice, albeit predictable cotton candy departure for me. […]

True Journalist

Nineteen Seventy-Four by David Peace

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Well I guess I know what a British James Ellroy would read like. The only other book I read of David Peace’s is his fun and hilarious soccer send-up The Damned Utd., which was the basis for a fun and hilarious soccer movie. I tried Red or Dead but found it’s repetition too cloying and it’s 600+ pages too daunting. Still, I think he’s a talented writer. It took me several tries to get into this one; I had to get used to his writing voice. But I’m […]

Men Are Terrible and Cannot Be Trusted

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss

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Ghost Wall is a story about Sylvie, a seventeen year old girl, dragged along on an Iron Age reenactment in northern England with her father, Bill. Bill’s enthusiasm for the Iron Age is a hobby; he isn’t traditionally educated in the subject, and jumps at the opportunity to join Professor Jim Slade and his students for what is essentially a two-week summer LARP. He brings his wife, Alison, and his daughter, Sylvie, along for the ride. It becomes obvious early in the novel that Bill […]

Good installment

A Crown of Lights by Phil Rickman

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Phil Rickman writes women very well. Merrily is such a wonderfully drawn character, but she isn’t the only well written woman in the book.  Rickman writes women as people, and, correctly, does not have them think or describe the women in terms of their boobs.  Rickman is also aware of how differently society would see a woman in a situation as opposed to a man.  This is used wonderfully as Merrily’s backstory makes it to social media.  Merrily’s reaction to the problem is one that […]

ooohhhh booyy is it not a love story

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

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This book was given to me as a parting gift when I left Yorkshire. I had been to Haworth to see the Brontë parsonage and I’d walked the moors behind the house and I had lived in and understood the sweet melodic dialect of West Yorkshire. All this lent the book a certain sweetness that the two horrible main characters did everything in their power to disrupt. I mean, I knew this wasn’t going to be a love story, but like ooohhhh booyy is it […]



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