Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Drinking tea, reading books, petting cats. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: TheShitWizard's Quick Questions interview.)

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Murder most historical

Sons of Cain: A History of Serial Killers from the Stone Age to the Present by Peter Vronsky

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Sons of Cain is the third book on serial killers that I’ve read from Peter Vronsky, having previously read about Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters and Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters. This time, the angle taken is a historical one, with Vronsky looking at serial killing trends from the Stone Age until now, while also theorising about the potential future of these types of crimes. Serial killing is in no way a modern phenomena, and this book looks […]

I’m starting to wonder if I have an anger problem…

Mad Bad and Dangerous to Know: The Extraordinary Exploits of the British and European Aristocracy by Karl Shaw

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Mad Bad and Dangerous to Know is a tongue in cheek tour through the terrible deeds of our so-called superiors that will still make you want to kick the door in of every last aristocrat in the land to give them a proper shoeing. Shaw takes us through some of the eccentrics, the gamblers, the rakes, the soldiers, the imbeciles and the many, many rapists and murderers that have made up our ‘betters’ – Byron, whom the title refers to, is by far and way […]

Gimme some skin

The Unkindest Tide by Seanan McGuire

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It’s pretty much impossible for me not to enjoy a Toby Daye book – they’ve become my comfort blanket whenever I need to disappear from the real world for a little while and I’ve not yet been disappointed. The Unkindest Tide – the 13th outing for Toby –  is no different. Hundreds of years ago the Roane, children of the Luidaeg, were slaughtered by the Selkies who took their skins for their own. While the Selkies have long known that the Luidaeg will one day […]

Don’t expect depth, but do expect to bust out your old records

Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Legendary Neighbourhood by Michael Walker

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As a teenage Doors fan (albeit in the nineties rather than when they were actually happening), Laurel Canyon has long loomed large in my imagination. A few minutes drive from the Sunset Strip and cheap, the canyon was home to a feast of late sixties/early seventies music legends (although really, at the time they were just starting out), and always seemed to me like such a cool and collaborative community. Reaching middle age has changed my idea of how much I’d actually enjoy living in […]

Slight case of second album syndrome

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

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Picking up where The Fifth Season left off, Essun is in Castrima-under getting to grips with comm life and the various personalities within it,  trying to understand just what happened to Alabaster, what his relationship is to the stone eater who accompanies him, and why he wants to teach her to manipulate the obelisks that litter the sky. Meanwhile, we pick up her daughter Nassun’s thread and follow her journey, alongside the father who killed her younger brother for his orogeny, as he takes her […]

Not your usual celeb autobiography

Becoming Johnny Vegas by Michael Pennington

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Just as Johnny Vegas isn’t your usual comedian, Becoming Johnny Vegas isn’t your usual celebrity autobiography. Most of those I’ve read tend to be a collection of funny anecdotes interspersed with achievements and name-dropping. While Becoming Johnny Vegas includes all of that, it’s also so much more – the introspection and self-reflection here goes deeper than in any other celebrity autobiography I’ve ever read, as Pennington (Vegas’ real name) tries to get to the bottom of just how he became Johnny Vegas. Recounting his happy […]



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