Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Did a chick? Dud a chum?

The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King

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There isn’t a Constant Reader alive who wouldn’t recognize the title of this post. The lobstrosities that plague Roland the Gunslinger in the second Dark Tower book are one of the only constants in a novel that hurls the reader through different points in both time and space (though always returning to New York City). The Drawing of the Three brings Roland closer to his elusive Dark Tower, but at great cost. Early on, he’s besieged by the horrid, ocean-dwelling lobstrosities, who rob him of […]

A Bit of a Dud

Finders Keepers by Stephen King

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Bingo: Red Stephen King’s Finders Keepers is the second book of the Bill Hodges trilogy. The first book was Mr. Mercedes, which I enjoyed. This second book was a bit sluggish, although the pacing was fine. The story itself didn’t have a lot of pep. The book centers on Peter, a teenage boy who comes across a stash of money and dozens of Moleskine notebooks full of writings. The stash was put there by a criminal named Morrie, who robbed and killed his favorite author […]

Never Flinch

Never Flinch by Stephen King

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Never Flinch is a Holly Gibney novel, the fifth King has written, though only the second where she is a leading character. Gibney, who shined as a supporting player in the Bill Hodges trilogy and The Outsider, has had a rougher time of it in her starring roles. Holly, who survived a childhood under her oppressive mother’s thumb to become an ace private investigator, is the kind of character audiences instinctively root for, but King’s handling of her has not always been the best. Her […]

Childe Roland to the dark tower came

The Dark Tower I: The Gungslinger by Stephen King

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After decades, I’ve decided to make my second pilgrimage to the Tower. The Gunslinger is the first in King’s most ambitious series, where his sprawling, multiversal, interconnected worlds are tied together.  Any Constant Reader worth their salt has made the trip to the Tower at least once. So as I stared down the final few weeks of my marathon training, I decided that I wanted my companion on the long, slow training runs to be Roland. In the world of the Dark Tower, “the man […]

“He also has only nine months to live, although he doesn’t know it yet.”

The Life of Chuck by Stephen King

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Based on the African proverb “When an old man dies, a library burns down” and the line from Walt Whitman’s poem Song of Myself “I am large, I contain multitudes”, The Life of Chuck is about the life of Charles “Chuck” Krantz, told backwards from his death to his early childhood, and how his death is causing the death of the universe held inside of him. Setting aside the contents for a moment, you have to love any book with Tom Hiddleston on the cover. […]

Runner’s high

Elevation by Stephen King

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I stumbled upon this little novella of Mr King amongst the ‘suggested for you’ Kindle books. It surprised me a little to see a King novel that I both haven’t read AND haven’t heard of, but there it was on the list. So I quickly purchased it and gave it a whirl. In typical fashion, Elevation takes place in a small town in Maine: Castle Rock. Here we meet Scott Carey, a single middle aged white guy, who works at home and gets angry when […]



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