Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

September 2023 Leftovers

Ex Machina, Book Five by Brian K. Vaughan

Windfall by Wendy Corsi Staub

The Big Bundle by Max Allan Collins

The Snack Thief by Andrea Camilleri

Guts and Genius: The Story of Three Unlikely Coaches Who Came to Dominate the NFL in the '80s by Bob Glauber

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Let’s please do something about climate change before it’s too late. I miss fall. And far more importantly: people’s lives are at stake. Ex Machina Book Five **** Mixed feelings on how this series ended. I think in many respects, the superhero stuff was handled better than the political angle through most of its run. That’s not something I thought I’d be saying after the first book. Making Mayor Hundred a contrarian centrist type was uninspired back then and comes off as even more annoying […]

May-July Leftovers

There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History by Rory Carroll

City of Dreams by Don Winslow

Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist by Jennifer Wright

Under Color of Law by Aaron Philip Clark

The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

The Last Quarry by Max Allan Collins

Tripwire by Jack Reacher

Baby Moll by John Farris

Only the Dead Know Brooklyn by Thomas Boyle

The Laundromat: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite by Jake Bernstein

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball's Brightest Minds Created Sports' Biggest Mess by Evan Drellich

X by Davey Davis

Our Last Season: A Writer, A Fan, A Friendship by Harvey Araton

The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín

Hard Rain by Samantha Jayne Allen

The Boys From Biloxi by John Grisham

Ex Machina Book Four by Brian K. Vaughan

Jacket Weather by Mike DeCapite

Straight Cut by Madison Smartt Bell

The Crust on Its Uppers by Derek Raymond

That Kind of Danger by Donna Masini

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

Spenser Confidential by Ace Atkins

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead

Weyward by Emilia Hart

The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon, I Mean Noel by Ellen Raskin

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

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I usually do these at the end of the month but then I went through a big reading slump March-May. And then I roared back but realized I was behind. So apologies for this being so long. There Will Be Fire **** A good, readable text on a moment in history I knew little about. Even after reading Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing, I still had a lot of problem keeping track of all the socio-political dynamics so it’s good that Rory Carroll makes it accessible […]

Americana Sports

Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association by Terry Pluto

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Read as part of CBR15Bingo: North America. The story of the American Basketball Association takes place exclusively in the United States and the organization has the word “American” in it. The other day, I was at a basketball team store when I saw a New York Nets hat for sale. I’ve tried really hard not to purchase clothes and hats these days but I just couldn’t help myself. It was beautiful, with the old school Nets logo. It represented everything good about the old American […]

“There’s plenty of happy treachery available to the pickler with a slightly sadistic streak”. Sounds entertaining in theory, but I still have no idea how to play.

Pickleball is Life by Erin McHugh

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I’m guessing like most people, I know a handful of people (mostly colleagues) who have gotten bitten by the latest fitness trend, pickleball. Even though it’s apparently been around in some form since the 1960s, the past 5 years or so have really seen the sport rise in popularity. I’ve never played, and am not terribly interested in joining a league, but I was a little curious, and I’d hoped that Pickleball is Life might be informative. I have not learned much; I don’t understand […]

The Wolves of Sports Television

Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN by James Andrew Miller, Tom Shales

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The thing I appreciated about this book the most was how it came into my possession. Several years ago (pre-COVID), I went to an estate sale in my parents’ neighborhood. From what I could tell, the person for whom the estate sale was held was a retired military guy, very into sports and “dad” books, with great taste in music. He had lots of interesting books and music CDs, and I bought this book, an old Yardbirds live recording, and a random tool. Sometimes estate […]

February 2023 Leftovers

Dead Wind by Tessa Wegert

One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus

Messi vs. Ronaldo: One Rivalry, Two Goats, and the Era That Remade the World's Game by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg

The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz

The Title: The Story of the First Division by Scott Murray

The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson

Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie

The Fiancée by Kate White

The Guns of Heaven by Pete Hamill

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Hey on the last day of the month, it finally snowed in New York! Huzzah! Dead Wind**** I can’t talk about why I like this book without even the mildest of spoilers if you’ve been following the series. So I’ll talk about what I appreciate. I’ve been in an on-and-off reading slump the last two months. It’s been hard to finish stuff. Tessa Wegert’s Shana Merchant series really feels like the exception to the rule. I like her writing, her pacing, her protagonist. All good. One […]



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