Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


A great debut–but I was spoiled by his other book.

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

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After reading and enjoying A Gentleman in Moscow, I picked up Rules of Civility, a book I’d checked out from the library before but never actually read.  Tl;dr: It was good, but not as good as Moscow.   I think Gentleman in Moscow corrected some of the things that annoyed me in this book, was slightly better edited, and had more of a “punch” that resonated long after finishing the book. The story is about Katie Kontent, and her life in New York in the late […]

Books to Film: Pal Joey and BUtterfield 8

John O'Hara: Four Novels of the 1930s by John O'Hara

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After recently reading Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I decided that I not only wanted to continue with my book-to-film theme, but keep it centered in New York City, too. That led me to John O’Hara’s  Pal Joey and BUtterfield 8. I had heard for years that the 1957 film version of Pal Joey was nothing like the 1940 Rodgers and Hart Broadway musical – Gene Kelly apparently portrayed him as a genuine no-good crumb (as Joey would say). In the film Frank Sinatra isn’t exactly […]

Revisiting a favourite from my early teens

Why Didn't They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie

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When out golfing one afternoon, young Mr Bobby Derwent finds a handsome stranger at the bottom of a cliff, near death. While his golfing companion goes to get help, Bobby sits with the stranger, who soon expires, but not before uttering: “Why didn’t they ask Evans?” While looking for signs of identification, Bobby finds the photograph of a very beautiful woman in the dead man’s pockets, but nothing else to give him a sign of the man’s identity. The local inquest rules the man’s death […]

A delightful book (which is also a lovely film)

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Miss Guinevere Pettigrew is a desperate, middle-aged governess, pretty sure that she’s unlikely to find many more jobs, who by accident is sent to to the wrong address by the employment agency. Instead of a mother looking for a new child minder, she meets the glamorous and vivacious singer/actress Miss Delysia DeFosse (NOT her real name) and before she knows it, Miss Pettigrew’s rather colourless and boring life is full of high drama and romance. Delysia has not one, not two, but three suitors that […]



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