Walter Tevis – Cannonball Read 17

Getting caught up on unreviewed books from last year

The Hustler by Walter Tevis

Horseman, Pass By by Larry McMurtry

The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa

June 7, 2025 by ingres77 Leave a Comment

My world fell apart last November with the election of Donald Trump, and I’m still trying to put the pieces back together. Nothing literal (lucky me). I’ve just spent the past few months detached from….everything outside of my personal bubble. I’m getting back to normal, though. No less angry – but better able to be a part of the world, I guess. Unfortunately, reading has been one of the things that has fallen by the wayside. I haven’t had the mental energy to read and […]

Space Oddity

The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis

March 9, 2022 by jeverett15 Leave a Comment

Before I’d ever read any of his books, I admired Walter Tevis for his range. Tevis is mostly known for four novels which have now all been adapted quite successfully. The Hustler, and it’s sequel The Color of Money, are about a great pool player. The Queen’s Gambit, as anyone with a Netflix account can tell you, is about a female chess champion. And then there’s The Man Who Fell to Earth. Adapted into a movie starring David Bowie, it tells the story of an […]

All Hail the Queen

The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis

January 10, 2021 by jeverett15 Leave a Comment

Netflix’s adaptation of The Queen’s Gambit was one of my favorite things of 2020. After blitzing through all seven episodes I even started playing chess again and enjoying it despite how terrible I am. Between Anya Taylor-Joy’s incredible performance, the unique subject matter, and the incredible vintage clothing there was a lot to love. So I eagerly snapped up a copy of the source material and plunged in. The danger of course with reading a book after seeing the adaptation is that the book will […]

The characters have as much personality and development as chess pieces

The Queen’s Gambit: A Novel by Walter Tevis

November 21, 2020 by ElCicco Leave a Comment

Author Walter Tevis had a knack for writing stories that seem to adapt well to the screen. The Queen’s Gambit, written in 1983, is a current hit series on Netflix, but Tevis, who died in 1984, also penned The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Hustler, and The Color of Money. I have not seen The Queen’s Gambit (or any of the other films) but I can say that the novel reads very much like a screenplay. He gives the reader action and tension on […]

King Her

The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis

November 5, 2020 by Jake Leave a Comment

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve shrugged off my manly man view of what real sports are. Cheerleading is a sport. Golf is a sport. Bowling is a sport. And for God’s sake, chess is a sport. I’d rather get sacked by Aaron Donald than try and sit in front of a grandmaster and play them at chess. A few years ago, I read Michael Weinreb’s entertaining The Kings of New York about a chess team at Brooklyn’s Edward R. Murrow High School. Weinreb, a writer who usually entertains me, […]

Egypt has been called The Gift of the Nile.

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody by Will Cuppy

Far From Home by Walter Tevis

Anglo Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson

August 6, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

CBR12Bingo – Shelfie These three books are not connected in any meaningful way except that I happened to buy all of them earlier in the summer from Thriftbooks and randomly chose to read them at the same time, switching off for a few reasons. Anglo-Saxon Attitudes ended up being a little more boring and dense that I had hoped, so the balance of the Walter Tevis stories helped, and while I really enjoy the Will Cuppy pieces, they are too similar to one another to […]

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