Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Literature will/might/won’t Save the World. Maybe. I’m not sure the book ever told me.

The Heavens by Sandra Newman

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This book takes some really big swings and while it doesn’t miss, it does seemingly bunt the ball. Commenting on the War on Terror & its justifications in the early 2000s – Check. Historical drama featuring Shakespeare – Check. Questioning if Time Travel does actually happen or is just in the mind of the protagonist a la Twelve Monkeys – Check. I could go on. There’s so much happening here that I found myself skimming backwards in the book like it’s a Choose Your Own […]

Deeply Dippy

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Mosfegh

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The year is 2000, the place is downtown Manhattan. Our protagonist is young, beautiful and rich. She has a degree in art history from a prestigious university and a job at a trendy art gallery. On the face of it, she is living the Manhattan dream, but she is deeply unhappy. All she wants is to sleep. Her theory is that her cells will renew themselves that way, that she will thus become a new person. So she locks herself into her apartment, takes staggering […]

Early Fall Leftovers

To Start A War: How the Bush Administration Took Us Into Iraq by Robert Draper

The Travelers by Chris Pavone

A Walk Among the Tombstones by Lawrence Block

Dark Fire by CJ Sansom

The Menendez Murders: The Shocking Untold Story of the Menendez Family and the Killings that Stunned the Nation by Robert Rand

Stasi Child by David Young

The Cover Wife by Dan Fesperman

So Thirsty by Rachel Harrison

Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich

Geiger by Gustaf Skördeman

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll

Slow Horses by Mick Herron

The Devil Knows You're Dead by Lawrence Block

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I’ve read some interesting stuff lately and I wish I had made more time to document it but life gets in the way that life sometimes does. Not all bad, just life. To Start A War**** I had a long thing here about connecting this to the 2024 election but I don’t want to talk current electoral politics on here, at least the specifics of them. A good book if you want to know the intelligence (ha) perspective of how we wound up in a […]

J’Accuse

To Start A War: How the Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq by Robert Draper

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When Dick Cheney endorsed Kamala Harris this past week, I blanched. I understand the political appeal of Cheney’s endorsement. And I’m on board for whatever it takes to win this election. I am a single issue voter and that issue is my deep desire to not have Donald Trump involved in any aspect of my life. But it’s still disheartening to watch people who want Trump held accountable cheer for Cheney because we let all of these folks off the hook. Robert Draper tries to […]

A short essay I heard about on NPR and needed to know more

On Grief: Love, Loss, Memory by Jennifer Senior

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I heard Jennifer Senior talking to one of the NPR hosts one day about this short story. It drew me in, and I wanted to read the whole thing. This was a short essay, but the characters (who are real people) were very well described and I felt like I was interacting with them. The main story is about Bobby McIlvaine, who worked in one of the twin towers and died in the September 11th attacks. Bobby had written journals starting in his childhood, up […]

Too much plot makes not a good thriller

Twenty Years Later by Charlie Donlea

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“I’m sorry, Avery. I love you, and we’ve been on some wild rides together. But this one might be too crazy for me to jump aboard.” Victoria Ford, the chief suspect in a murder investigation, died when the Twin Towers fell on 9/11. Now, twenty years later, her remains have been identified, and Avery Mason, the journalist reporting on the story, realizes there is more to the case than anyone realized. Guys, I really wanted to like this book. Though I felt iffy about 9/11 […]



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