Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Place That God Forgot

The Fourth Durango by Ross Thomas

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Read as part of CBR11 Bingo: summer read. I wasted too much of my life not reading Ross Thomas novels. I’ve been going through them the last two years and he’s become one of my all-time favorite writers. The “Elmore Leonard of politics” label is quite apt and The Fourth Durango, a tale packed with great characters and a fun premise, is one of the reasons why. The book itself is part mystery, part thinking person’s “thriller” and part excuse to get a bunch of people in […]

Keep A Diary

Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon's Downfall by Elizabeth Drew

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Read as part of CBR11 bingo: History Elizabeth Drew’s Washington Journal is making me wish I had kept a diary about the Trump era to document these last few years. I often talk about how the Trump Era is the “lol nothing matters” times of nihilism and obstinance. Seems like a lot of that was going on in 1973-1974. Drew covers the last year of Nixon’s presidency from the perspective of an insider journalist living in the hermetically sealed bubble of Washington, DC. She did a great […]

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsberg – Marvelous and Glorious

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon, Shana Knizhnik

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For Christmas, my husband got me dissent collar stud earrings as a stocking stuffer. I was delighted, but a little chagrined. I didn’t think I knew enough about Ruth Bader Ginsberg to call me one of her fans, and make me legitimate enough to rock the earrings. But rock them I did, because they make me feel powerful, and they are also adorable – the perfect accessories. But, I wanted to fill a bit of my RBG knowledge gap, so I jumped in the queue […]

My Kind of Town, Chicago is…

In A Pig's Eye by Robert Campbell

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In a time before both Amazon and GoodReads reviews became omnipresent, a person would pick something off the shelf because it interested them. They didn’t cross consult a third party to see if it would be worth their time, they just grabbed it and hoped for the best. I confess that I sometimes miss living in the stone age. I took a chance on this one after seeing it for $3 in the discount section at my favorite bookstore: The Mysterious in lower Manhattan. Rarely […]

The Nobel committee doesn’t always get it right.

Democracy In Chains by Nancy MacLean

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I am so far behind on CBR reviews! So, I’m gonna try and get back in the game with this book that I finished just after Christmas 2018. I should probably say up front that if you aren’t into US politics, this probably isn’t for you. But, if you’d like a good historical view of the present-day GOP party and how we got here, well, dive into this one. You won’t be sorry. Democracy in Chains by Nancy MacLean is an in-depth examination of the early right-wing Libertarian […]

Man of the Moment

Shortest Way Home by Pete Buttigieg

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If you’ve been desperately awaiting November 2020 as much as I have, you’ve probably noticed that Pete Buttigieg is having a moment. The 37-year-old Buttigieg is a Harvard grad, a Rhodes Scholar, and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, having been called up from Reserve duty while in his first term. He famously speaks seven languages and even performed Gershwin with the South Bend Symphony Orchestra. He is also the first openly-gay man to run for President, having come out shortly after returning from […]



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