Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Family History and Mysteries

Tangleroot by Kalela Williams

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Gosh, where to start with this book. Tangleroot opens with Noni being forced to give an opening speech to introduce her mother, Radiance, as the new president of Stonepost college, but the speech has been edited because Radiance is pushing to have the college renamed after their ancestor, Cuffee Fortune, who built and opened the college. Noni isn’t able to finish the speech and accidentally hot mics her mom when she reiterates that she didn’t want to the speech. Radiance is a force, and she’s […]

Early Fall Leftovers

To Start A War: How the Bush Administration Took Us Into Iraq by Robert Draper

The Travelers by Chris Pavone

A Walk Among the Tombstones by Lawrence Block

Dark Fire by CJ Sansom

The Menendez Murders: The Shocking Untold Story of the Menendez Family and the Killings that Stunned the Nation by Robert Rand

Stasi Child by David Young

The Cover Wife by Dan Fesperman

So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison

Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich

Geiger by Gustaf Skördeman

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll

Slow Horses by Mick Herron

The Devil Knows You're Dead by Lawrence Block

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I’ve read some interesting stuff lately and I wish I had made more time to document it but life gets in the way that life sometimes does. Not all bad, just life. To Start A War**** I had a long thing here about connecting this to the 2024 election but I don’t want to talk current electoral politics on here, at least the specifics of them. A good book if you want to know the intelligence (ha) perspective of how we wound up in a […]

The Banality of Good

Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada

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Otto and Anna Quangel are indifferent toward living under Nazi rule, but when they receive the news that their son was killed in the war, they begin a silent campaign of defiance. There’s a phrase in the afterword that’s used to sum up the central theme of this book – ‘the banality of good.’ There’s plenty of well-known stories of resistance against oppressive powers from all eras – certainly plenty I can recount from World War Two alone, plenty of lives saved and a huge […]

Woman, Mother, Interpreter, Spy

A Woman of Intelligence by Karin Tanabe

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I knew early on this was not going to be the book I expected and I mean that in a complimentary sense. I thought this would be a cozy-esque female housewife in the 50s using her wiles to navigate Manhattan cocktail parties and deduce who may or may not be a Soviet sympathizer. There’s nothing cozy about this, however. It’s a raw, intriguing look at the perils of motherhood for women in the 1950s, with a spy story tacked on in the background. The espionage […]

Some really beautiful moments don’t necessarily add up to a masterpiece of a novel

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

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CBR16 BINGO: Détente, because Billy is always trying to keep the peace Amor Towles is an undeniably talented writer. Having fallen in love with A Gentleman in Moscow and being charmed by Table for Two, I came to expect that I would adore just about anything he wrote. And certainly, there is a lot to like in The Lincoln Highway. At times I would be cruising along like the old Studebaker in the story when a particular turn of phrase or small vignette would stop me […]

The Spy Zoo

The Secret Hours by Mick Herron

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I picked up this book because it wasn’t supposed to be connected to the Slow Horses series. But I’ve read in other places that it might be? I don’t know, use your own judgment if you want to avoid the most minute of spoilers. Some writers are like exercising: you just have to push through the initial strain in order to get the good stuff. I hate exercising but I can’t think of a better example. I’ve tried Slow Horses several times and I can’t focus on Herron’s style. […]



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