Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Waiting to Die

Shoot the Moonlight Out by William Boyle

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William Boyle has done it again. I don’t know if he’ll ever write anything as delightfully manic as A Friend Is A Gift You Give Yourself. But as long as he keeps doing these Brooklyn-based character driven crime stories, I’m a happy reader. This one is familiar if you’ve read his others but you don’t need to in order to dive in. They’re loosely connected so you can start anywhere. Boyle uses the template of a crime novel to create a world of south Brooklyn that he […]

What the Rich Do in the Shadows

The Missing Hours by Julia Dahl

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___Nesting here for major triggers___     cn. the book itself describes the after effects of rape, revenge porn and other means of violence. If any of that is triggering or problematic for you, sit this one out. I grabbed Julia Dahl’s new standalone The Missing Hours on a bit of a whim. I read an interview she gave on the invaluable website crimereads.com and it seemed interesting. I had read The Invisible City a few years ago and enjoyed it well enough for a freshman effort so I […]

Mayor From the Machine

Ex Machina, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan, et al.

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Okay, so, apparently I have a big thing for Brian K. Vaughan’s work. I’m a ride-or-die Saga fan, and while I do miss that series, I think it’s good that the creative team has given it time to breathe before bringing it back. I also enjoyed Paper Girls, Vol. 1, which I read a few weeks ago and which I intend to pour through. I own a copy of Y: The Last Man, and that one’s coming up soon in the TBR pile. But this is something else. A […]

Two Comics and a Horror

Paper Girls, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughn, et al.

Daredevil: Born Again by Frank Miller and Dave Mazzucchelli

'Salem's Lot by Stephen King

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Read two comics and re-read a horror classic. All good in their various ways, two not living up to the potential of greatness and one with said potential… Paper Girls, Volume 1 A lot of folks warned that this one would be confusing but being a huge “Saga” fan, I was willing to give Brian K. Vaughn the benefit of the doubt. And it paid off. It’s a good table setter for what promises to be a good story. I liked the characters and, I’ve […]

Baby Baby Baby

Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

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This was one where I read the book before seeing the movie, both of which I did over Halloween weekend (Happy Halloween to me!). I had read, and admired Ira Levin’s Boys from Brazil years ago. Part of my issue with those kinds of high concept stories is that writers get too lost in the concept itself and fail to tell the story. Levin does not suffer from that problem. I’ve probably waited too long to read this (Stepford Wives as well). The premise is well known to […]

Rosemary Reads Rosemary

Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

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Rosemary’s Baby is one of my favorite films. Once I read the book I realized that the film followed it pretty closely. In some scenes, word for word. So taking it to the ultimate meta I guess, I decided to listen to the film’s Rosemary, Mia Farrow, read the classic horror novel by Ira Levin. She did not disappoint. Her interpretation helped me see the story through Rosemary’s eyes. Farrow ably portrays the extremely naive Rosemary, who is starstruck by her ambitious actor husband Guy. […]



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