Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Jack, in his dark camps, saw Ennis as a night fire, a red spark on the huge black mass of mountain.

Brokeback Mountain by E. Annie Proulx

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Going up, the day was fine but the trail deep-drifted and slopping wet at the margins. They left it to wind through a slashy cut, leading the horses through brittle branchwood, Jack, the same eagle feather in his old hat, lifting his head in the heated noon to take the air scented with resinous lodgepole, the dry needle duff and hot rock, bitter juniper crushed beneath the horses’ hooves. Ennis, weather-eyed, looked west for the heated cumulus that might come up on such a day […]

This is a book that I read.

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

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I remember watching Lonesome Dove with my grandparents as a child, although I remember absolutely nothing about the plot (I was probably not actually watching, but reading something while it was on in the background). What I remember most is how much my grandparents liked it. A couple years ago I decided maybe I’d try to read the book. I stopped and started at least 3 times, struggling to have any interest in the lives of a couple retired Texas Rangers. It wasn’t until this year, when […]

Mob Justice in a Western Town

The Ox Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark

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Bingo: “O” The true law is something in itself; it is the spirit of the moral nature of man; it is an existence apart, like God, and as worthy of worship as God. If we can touch God at all, where do we touch him save in the conscience? And what is the conscience of any man save his little fragment of the conscience of all men in all time?” Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s The Ox Bow incident is an observation on justice, mob psychology, […]

Not Exactly Mexican Gothic, But Close Enough

The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James

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cbr17bingo Border Now this was an interesting one.  Mexican Gothic is my jam, and I thought that this would be along that vein, but it turned out to be definitely its own thing – an intriguing cross between fictionalized family lore and magical realism.  And when I looked up the translation of Part Two – El Tragabalas, I discover that it is the book’s title in Spanish, but it is also the title of a fairly well known Mexican movie from the mid-60s, and the […]

Get in to Dodge

Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens

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Read as part of CBR17 Bingo: workplace. The vast majority of the book takes place at the Buffalo Queen saloon. I love reading. And I’m a voracious reader, as my Cannonball Read review catalog can attest to. Maybe I don’t get to it as much as I have in years past but I enjoy reading and documenting what I’ve read. However, because I devour so many books, I tend to have either read or tried most of the stuff I see on listicles. It’s to […]

Getting caught up on unreviewed books from last year

The Hustler by Walter Tevis

Horseman, Pass By by Larry McMurtry

The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa

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My world fell apart last November with the election of Donald Trump, and I’m still trying to put the pieces back together. Nothing literal (lucky me). I’ve just spent the past few months detached from….everything outside of my personal bubble. I’m getting back to normal, though. No less angry – but better able to be a part of the world, I guess. Unfortunately, reading has been one of the things that has fallen by the wayside. I haven’t had the mental energy to read and […]



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