Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Strawberry Fields Forever

The Dakota Winters by Tom Barbash

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You will probably not like this book. I know that’s a weird thing to say for a book I rated 4-stars. It sounds like I’m being critical of it and that couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m not sure it’s a good book but it’s a book written for someone like me: someone who loves adventures in Manhattan. Turn the clock back to 1980, throw in some historical figures, lifestyle porn, and urban tourism and I am content. The book itself: it’s main character, […]

Book So Nice, He Named It Thrice

New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation by Thomas Dyja

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I’ve waited a long time for a book like this. I’ve always wanted to know how New York City became NEW YORK CITY! in its modern day form. How it “came back” from its struggling 70s and who benefitted versus who got left behind. I was hoping for something in scope that could synthesize politics with culture. Thomas Dyja does that and so much more in a delightfully readable, single volume. Dense but easy to engage with, this book starts from the beginning of the […]

Meet the Plumbs

The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

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My memory from the last few years is hazy but if I recall correctly, Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s 2016 novel The Nest was one of the breakout hits of the literary year. I remember seeing it everywhere and hearing about its existence, even if I didn’t know the plot. A little research confirmed at least some of this: the book sold for 7-figures to a publishing house and there were like a billion (very available) copies at my local libraries. This no doubt was a hit with the […]

Staten Island!

The Devil She Knows by Bill Loehfelm

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For the last 48 hours, I’ve been convinced that something was wrong with me, that the other shoe would drop and I would start thinking about this book differently. I picked it up because it’s the first in a series that was lauded by an author I like (although apparently he read others in the series and has yet to get to this one). The reviews on it were less than stellar but the premise hooked me: overworked bartender falls into political conspiracy Hitchock-style, has […]

Binge

The Blackbird by Richard Stark

Dead Connection by Alafair Burke

The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black

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Anytime I finish a tome (in this case, Don DeLillo’s Underworld), I tend to binge read in order to get back in the swing of things. Here are three books I picked up over the weekend… The Blackbird *** Someone asked on Twitter recently that if you could take three traits from a writer for yourself, what would they be? I should have mentioned Donald Westlake’s amazing versatility. Just consider the Grofield series: first a heist tale, then a locked room mystery, now a spy thriller, […]

Time to Ketchup

Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke

Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York by Elon Green

The Revelators by Ace Atkins

The Last Flight by Julie Clark

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Because I read two behemoth 660+ page books back-to-back, I went on a little reading binge this week to “ketchup.” I liked most of these, two more so than the two others. Black Cherry Blues *** I want to go through the David Robicheaux series for two reasons: 1. I love Louisiana and 2. I want to see how Burke develops this story. After enjoying Heaven’s Prisoners, I found this a step back for multiple reasons… 1. Burke pads an already thin story with a lot […]



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