Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Reading Days

In the Cut by Susanna Moore

The Papers of Tony Veitch by William McIlvanney

Angel's Tip by Alafair Burke

The Devil in Her Way by Bill Loehfelm

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In sleep debt and haven’t had time to write reviews like I’ve wanted to the last few weeks so here are a few things I’ve read lately… In the Cut **** It’s tough to talk about this one. The writing is superb, bordering brilliant. The scenes are rich. The ending…good but not good? I don’t know. I liked it a lot but I can’t really say why except to say it’s well-written and thrilling. Erotic in a messy way. It addresses the way physical attraction […]

Strangers On A Train-Stranger and Strangerer

Strangers On A Train by Patricia Highsmith

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Every once in a while I get a yen to read the source novel for one of my favorite classic movies. My most recent read (actually listen) is Strangers On A Train, by Patricia Highsmith. I have seen the classic Alfred Hitchcock film, featuring Robert Walker and Farley Granger, many times. There are some indelible, memorable scenes in that movie – the two men crossing legs and crossing lives on the train, the gold lighter which incriminates and absolves, the final deadly and hair-raising sequence […]

Little Grey Cell Comfort Food

Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly by Agatha Christie

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When I can’t think of anything else to read, or just want something comforting and familiar, there is always Agatha Christie. And although I have read (I think) most of her books by now, I am still drawn most frequently to the ones featuring the inimitable Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot. He of the meticulous ways and fantastic mustaches. With his obsession with detail and as Ben Franklin says, “a place for everything, everything in its place,” he has to be a Virgo, like me. And […]

Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair

Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway by Sara Gran

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Unlike Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead, I wasn’t able to down this one quickly like I thought I would. I had to sit with certain parts of it. It’s more personal and raw than the first one…and just as good, if not better. It’s tough to describe Gran’s writing style. It’s this mix of absurdism, postmodernism and hardboiled. Usually, people who write that way are trying way too hard. For Gran, it’s effortless. And it makes every dialogue exchange an adventure. Sometimes, I […]

Ol’ Hollywood

Windhall by Ava Barry

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Sigh. Why can’t books like this be easier to review? There’s so much to like about Ava Barry’s debut novel Windhall…and so much that grated on my nerves. I really wanted to push this to a charity first-book-4-star review and I just couldn’t. The book kind of feels like the version of the decaying mansion at the center of the story: beautiful and glamorous but uninhabitable and far past its prime. Probably easier with this one to pull out the old good/bad formula: Good: -The book […]

Break on Through to the Other Side

Now You See Her by Linda Howard

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Linda Howard was one of my top go-to romance authors for a long time, but somewhere along my reading journey she fell to the wayside. I was going through my Kindle library and came across Now You See Her which was originally published in 1998. I decided to do a re-read to see if it held up better than some of Howard’s other books like Mr. Perfect, which I used to love but have since come to realize is very problematic. The answer is maybe? Now You See Her […]



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