Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Jake

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Jake's Reviews:

Auf Wiedersehen, Old Friend

Metropolis by Philip Kerr

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The last week or so, I’ve written in different outlets about the impact Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series has had on my reading journey and personal life. While acknowledging the many faults of these books, I love them in a special way. I think Kerr is great at capturing atmosphere and cynicism to produce some truly great crime reading. “Nazi Noir” is a burgeoning genre now but Kerr’s Gunther works were really the trendsetter. Knowing this would be the last one following Kerr’s untimely death, and knowing it was set solely in Weimar Berlin, got me emotional just thinking about […]

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Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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4/15/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:40 |

Eat the Rich

Murder at the Savoy by Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö

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Going into reading this series, I knew Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö were avowed socialists who wrote these books in large parts as a critique of inequality in Sweden. But while their beliefs do sneak out from time-to-time, they generally ground their mysteries in the tradition of a police procedural as opposed to pedagogy cloaked in mystery drag. That goes out the window with Murder at the Savoy, which is about as didactic of a book as I’ve read from them. There’s no question about it to the co-authors: the rich suck. They also suck the marrow out of the economy […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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4/10/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:39 |

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 do I get good cell service in The Mysterious, so I don’t even recall if […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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4/8/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:38 |

Dystopia Now

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

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This is the ultimate 3 vs. 4 star test for me. In a rare instance of compromise, I decided to sleep on the review, rather than post right away as is my habit. I finished it late last night and didn’t want to stare at the computer before bed. When I went to bed, it was a 4. I woke up (heh), thinking it was a 3. And now, as I sit down, nearly 24 hours after finishing it…I’m giving it a 4. With major reservations. This book reminds me of the longform mea culpa written by Megan Phelps-Roper for The […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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4/7/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:37 |

Where Brooklyn At.

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

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I don’t know what it’s like to have Tourette’s Syndrome, nor do I know the specifics of how it manifests in human behavior. As far as I know, neither does Jonathan Lethem. There is a troubling history of able bodied people using illnesses and non-ableness to become magical healers and special problem solvers. So maybe this book is complete trash because Jonathan Lethem gets those aspects wrong. But from an ignorant perspective, I liked this one. And I liked it not because he had Tourette’s but because it showed how someone with Tourette’s might navigate a difficult situation such as […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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4/3/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:36 |

Read It Here First

Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman

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I won a free ARC from Goodreads in exchange for this review. Thanks Goodreads! Laura Lippman’s been on a bit of a roll with her standalone novels. Wilde Lake was really good and Sunburn is, in my estimation, the best thing she’s ever done. Most of what I loved about reading Lippman’s Tess Monaghan novels growing up was the Baltimore tourism. Being a native of the city, it’s fun to see a bestselling author talk about places I know like they’re real. But her standalone works show how she has evolved as a writer, forsaking the familiar private eye tropes and Baltimore fetishism of […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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4/1/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:35 |

Red Harvest

The Fools In Town Are On Our Side by Ross Thomas

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Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest is perhaps my favorite crime novel of all-time. It inspired one of my favorite movies of all time: Miller’s Crossing. It also inspired the Akira Kurosawa classic Yojimbo, which I have not seen, though I want to. Point being: I obviously have a thing for the specific genre where a political actor is caught in a corrupt city and plays both sides against each other for their own benefit. I don’t know Ross Thomas’ inspirations for Fools in Town but I’d be stunned if Red Harvest wasn’t one of them. This feels like an updated version, only more expansive. Thomas gives his protagonist, […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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3/29/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:34 |

If A Book Falls out of a Cliche Tree, Is It Still Good?

Bloody January by Alan Parks

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There’s so much to like about Alan Parks’ Bloody January that I’m almost willing to forgive its many faults. Almost. Not quite. 4-stars is my standard for what I consider a “good read.” 4-stars means the book met the minimum standard for entertainment (and/or education) and quality. I give out 4-stars like its candy. Bloody January should easily slot into a 4-star read. And yet, it pulls hard on every cliche. The drunk detective with a dark past. The hooker with a heart of gold who can’t shake the drugs. The scheming villains who are inescapably tied to our hero (or anti-hero, I guess, […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "If A Book Falls out of a Cliche Tree, Is It Still Good?"

3/28/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:33 |


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