Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone

Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone by James Baldwin

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Leo Proudhammer is a lot of things at the beginning of this novel. He’s 39, he’s a famous stage actor, he’s world-traveled, he’s a Black man who grew up in Harlem, and he’s bisexual. He’s also just had a stress induced heart-attack that’s nearly killed him. In his post-attack state, he begins to reflect on his life to this point. He begins by telling about his childhood, where he and his seven-years-older brother looked out for each from their tyrant of a father. There’s the […]

Gosh how zany – The mute secretary is also a stripper(! lolol)

Jumpers by Tom Stoppard

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I picked this up from a library book sale. Jumpers is the first play Tom Stoppard put out after Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and even though the persnickety toffs of Concord MA apparently didn’t check it out very often, I thought it showed some promise. The back cover copy is of the “can you believe how wacky” genre, like, “British astronauts are scrapping with each other on the moon, and spritely academics steal about London by night indulging in murderous gymnastics!” If you are […]

Deep Cuts

Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell

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Utopia Avenue comes into Dean Moss’s life at just the right time. He’s broke and newly homeless when Levon Frankland approached him at a bar and offers him a job. Levon needs a bassist for a rock group that he’s putting together. Dean’s so desperate he joins in despite the fact that there’s no one else in the band. Soon he’s joined by Pete “Griff” Griffin on drums, Elizabeth “Elf” Holloway on vocals and piano, and Jasper de Zoet on lead guitar. They are four […]

Enjoyed it while reading it, then forgot about it almost immediately

Who is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews

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Plot: Florence is an editorial assistant at a publishing company who one day sort of accidentally-on-purpose blows up her unfulfilling life. Soon after, she’s given the chance to work as an assistant for the celebrated pseudonymous author, Maud Dixon. She soon learns that Maud Dixon is in fact a woman named Helen, an unbearably pretentious (my interpretation, not Florence’s) woman living in upstate New York. Helen is working on a novel that takes place in Morocco, and so the two travel there together for her […]

February Leftovers 2022

Trouble Is What I Do by Walter Mosley

Sleeping With Strangers by Eric Jerome Dickey

The Trees by Percival Everett

One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Democracy by Carol Anderson

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These are my February leftovers, i.e. books that I read but didn’t give a full review either cuz I didn’t have time or didn’t have much to say. There are fewer than normal this month because Black Reconstruction by W.E.B. DuBois took up most of my time. Trouble Is What I Do **** Another good entry in the Leonid McGill series. It’s short and that streamlines the story more than its predecessors. I still read these as if Leonid is dead and NYC is his purgatory where […]

Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts

Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia

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I’m going to start this review like an online recipe: by providing a long back-story that is not relevant to why you are here. I have always been an avid reader and have dabbled a bit with writing. Several years ago, I attempted to participate in the Cannonball Read. I posted exactly one review. My problem was two-fold. One, the Pajiba crowd seems so well-read, articulate, witty, and generally smarter then me. This left me feeling intimidated, as though my reviews would be ‘I liked […]



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