Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Matt Scudder – Nostalgic NYC Noir

When the Sacred Ginmill Closes by Lawrence Block

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My dad was a huge fan of the prolific author Lawrence Block. Block is best known for two series of books, one following ex NYC cop Matthew Scudder and his battles with alcohol and guilt, as well as a light-hearted series about the charming burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, who always seems to find himself on a job in a fabulous residence that also happens to contain a dead body. Most of the Scudder novels are included with my Audible subscription, so I have been enjoying revisiting […]

Small unsatisfying bytes of sci-fi

Cosmogramma by Courttia Newland

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‘Cosmogramma’ is a collection of speculative short stories of a science fiction bent. Robots, AI, space travel… with a little sprinkling of mermaids and zombies and superhumans to keep things interesting. Given it’s a collection of short stories, I’ll do my best to review each briefly and then give my overall impression: Percipi A dispassionate retelling of a robopocalyse. Engaging, well told, and very believable. I wish that this short story was fleshed out and just the whole novel, honestly. Reminded me of ‘animatrix’.  Five […]

The Superheroine duo is now the foreshadowed Heroine Trio!

Heroine's Journey by Sarah Kuhn

Haunted Heroine by Sarah Kuhn

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Heroine’s Journey and Haunted Heroine are the third and fourth books in Sarah Kuhn’s fun ‘Heroine’ series.  Demons breached our dimension and some humans gained powers as a result.  Set in present day San Francisco and surrounding areas, Aveda Jupiter and her best friend Evie Tanaka have become the superheroine darlings of the city.  Aveda’s telekinesis combined with fighting prowess and Evie’s ability to create and throw fire have made them a fantastic duo.  The road to get there has been rough as they each had […]

“Mum spent a lot of time in my formative years gently reminding me that people don’t think about us nearly as much as we think they do, because they’re all busy worrying what people are thinking about them.” 

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik

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Imagine a high school that has zero teachers or staff, just students trying to learn and advance. When you show up the first day of freshman year you don’t leave until graduation day senior year. All you have with you is what you had in your pockets or even in your mouth — No suitcases or trunks. It’s a school of magic, but not like Hogwarts or Watford. And that school is actively trying to kill you. This is the world that our “heroine,” El […]

The Gay Place – Billy Lee Brammer (1961)

The Flea Circus by Billy Lee Brammer

Room Enough to Caper by Billy Lee Brammer

Country Pleasures by Billy Lee Brammer

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This is a collection of three novellas first published in 1961 by a former aide to Lyndon Baines Johnson long before he was president. He was never the governor of Texas, but a senator and house representative before he was vice-president. This book to me feels like an inverse to All the King’s Men, where a political figure (framed off of Huey Long) is a center to riff on Souther identity and history more than the politics of the day. Here, I think there’s a lot […]

Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller (1934)

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

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(Photo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Cancer_(novel)) I guess it’s fair to ask the question is this book mysoginistic, about mysogny, about a mysognistic character or some combination of all three. I think it’s got to be all three in varying degrees. I can imagine for a lot of people, reading this novel felt fairly ilberating when it came out and then when it finally came out. And while, sure there’s plenty of graphic sexual content, what stands out to me more than anything in reading it now, especially at […]



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