Jake – Cannonball Read 12

> Articles by: Jake

Suspense Is Killing

Hipster Death Rattle by Richie Narvaez

A Touch of Death by Charles Williams

September 25, 2020 by Jake Leave a Comment

I finished two different crime novels over the last couple of days, one written by a novice, the other by a legend, both really good in their own respective ways. Hipster Death Rattle I’ve become more familiar with north Brooklyn the last couple of months and boy, does Richie Narvaez know ever corner and haunt. A delightful skewering of hipster culture set right in the middle of Williamsburg, Gentrification’s Ground Zero, the book is as much a satire as it is a mystery. Some of […]

A Spy In The Closet

Who Is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht

September 23, 2020 by Jake Leave a Comment

Using spy stories to tell larger tales about identity is becoming a popular trope. Most recently, I’m thinking of how Lauren Wilkinson used the genre to talk about black identity against the specter of white imperialism. Rosalie Knecht does it in a different way with a lesbian woman. There are two stories running concurrently with one another: flashbacks to Vera’s time leading up to joining the CIA and her time in Argentina trying to run counterintelligence on KGB factions attempting to facilitate a communist-led coup. […]

In Putin’s Russia, Donald Trumps YOU!

House of Trump, House of Putin by Craig Unger

September 22, 2020 by Jake Leave a Comment

First of all, much love to this book for having a clever cover. Donald Trump and the Putin nesting dolls…it gave me a laugh every time I looked at it, especially the Putin face sticking out of an oversized body. Second, and more important…this book should have been much better than it was given the subject. I’ve explored some of the connections between the Russian organized crime unit and Donald Trump. I was anticipating this book would make those links more clear. Instead, it’s basically […]

Them Good Ol’ Boys

The Sinners by Ace Atkins

September 19, 2020 by Jake Leave a Comment

Do you have a series that’s so deeply enjoyable to you, reading it’s like slipping on a good, comfortable pair of jeans or drinking something tasty out of a favorite glass? That’s the Quinn Colson series for me. Eight books in and there’s not much differentiating one from another, this one included. But man, I really do enjoy these. Atkins creates great characters and he does such a fantastic job building this setting. Every story adds a layer to fictional Tibbehah County and I’m here […]

Pearl Clutching

Rage by Bob Woodward

September 17, 2020 by Jake Leave a Comment

Apparently, it took Bob Woodward 3.5 years and close to a thousand pages to deduce that Donald Trump is unfit to be President. Good job, Bob. Here’s a cookie. Like Fear, his other work on the Trump Administration, this is less a book with a narrative thread and more a collection of scattered anecdotes from various sources cobbled together the way someone cuts and pastes articles from a newspaper for a scrapbook. In reviewing a bad movie once, Jamelle Bouie said that the film was “the […]

KimMiE" on I read an entire book about Irish tweed and I think I liked itOh goodness, this is right up my husband's alley. He read an entire book about bananas and he doesn't love bananas nearly as much as...
caragwapa on Post Apocalyptic ComfortMovie was.. FINE. If it were a zombie movie not entitled World War Z and based on the beloved book. I think that Jacob Have...
BlackRaven on I’m probably one of the last people to read MausI have to say the French Frog was a bit over-the-top, but at the same time, it works. I would love to talk to him...
andtheIToldYouSos on I read an entire book about Irish tweed and I think I liked itthis sounds really neat, and it wouldn't have popped into my radar if you hadn't told us about it- thank you!
tillie on I’m probably one of the last people to read MausYou're not the last! It's on my TBR pile as well. I've been hesitant because of the whole mouse/cat/pig thing which seemed very reductive to...

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