Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


A Solid David Geffen Biography

The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood by Tom King

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I read this after the second volume of James Kaplan’s magisterial biography of Frank Sinatra, so I was in the mood for reading about more horrible men with bad tempers. The Operator is a biography of David Geffen, who has had an extremely broad and influential career in show business. I knew only about Geffen Records going into this book, and it broadened my view of everything he’s been involved in, from helping produce Cats on Broadway to being one of the founders of DreamWorks. […]

“And it so angered me that I finally thought to myself, ‘Bitch, do something yourself instead of just sitting there getting angry. Do something.'”

Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamour of an Icon by Kate Andersen Brower

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What a fascinating life this woman led. I really feel like it would be pretty hard to come away from this book not liking Elizabeth Taylor as a human being. She loved fiercely, struggled publicly, and left a huge legacy that has helped millions of people, and continues to do so. I grew up in the 80s and 90s knowing who Elizabeth Taylor was, just like everyone else, because she was part of the zeitgeist, one of the most famous women ever to live. I […]

I want to tell your story, the way it really happened.

Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman

Maus II : And Here My Troubles Began, Maus. A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman

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CBR15 BINGO (Picture This square: Maus I, Graphic novel) BINGO! – Strange World to Picture This CBR15 BINGO (History square: Maus II, Holocaust, Auschwitz) BINGO! – South America to History BINGO! – History to Europe I have to confess the only time that I read graphic novels is once a year for a bingo square. I was never a big comics person and I tend to equate the two (don’t come for me, I know that they aren’t necessarily the same) but do enjoy the ones that I have read. Not sure what is […]

August 2023 Leftovers

Red Cat by Peter Spiegelman

You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters by Kate Murphy

Gangland by Chuck Hogan

Death and the Good Life by Richard Hugo

You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Alexa Coe

Britt-Marie Was Here by Frederik Backman

Occupied City by David Peace

Sleepless City by Reed Farrel Coleman

Bad Summer People by Emma Rosenblum

Run Time by Cathy Ryan Howard

Loyalty by Lisa Scottoline

None Of This Is True by Lisa Jewell

The Club by Ellery Lloyd

Not in Bronxville by Rita K. Farrelly

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Unquestionably the worst month in the calendar. Red Cat*** It’s not the writer’s fault that I just finished Robert Kolker’s excellent Lost Girls in light of the apprehension of the man they think is the Gilgo Beach murderer. But my threshold for murdered sex workers was low going into this. I only finished it because it filled a specific square for my library summer reading game. It’s not bad; the mystery is done well but it doesn’t stand out as far as the rest of […]

May-July Leftovers

There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History by Rory Carroll

City of Dreams by Don Winslow

Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist by Jennifer Wright

Under Color of Law by Aaron Philip Clark

The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

The Last Quarry by Max Allan Collins

Tripwire by Jack Reacher

Baby Moll by John Farris

Only the Dead Know Brooklyn by Thomas Boyle

The Laundromat: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite by Jake Bernstein

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball's Brightest Minds Created Sports' Biggest Mess by Evan Drellich

X by Davey Davis

Our Last Season: A Writer, A Fan, A Friendship by Harvey Araton

The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín

Hard Rain by Samantha Jayne Allen

The Boys From Biloxi by John Grisham

Ex Machina Book Four by Brian K. Vaughan

Jacket Weather by Mike DeCapite

Straight Cut by Madison Smartt Bell

The Crust on Its Uppers by Derek Raymond

That Kind of Danger by Donna Masini

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

Spenser Confidential by Ace Atkins

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead

Weyward by Emilia Hart

The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon, I Mean Noel by Ellen Raskin

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

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I usually do these at the end of the month but then I went through a big reading slump March-May. And then I roared back but realized I was behind. So apologies for this being so long. There Will Be Fire **** A good, readable text on a moment in history I knew little about. Even after reading Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing, I still had a lot of problem keeping track of all the socio-political dynamics so it’s good that Rory Carroll makes it accessible […]

To Bomb Atomically

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

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One of my all-time favorite movies is The Hunt for Red October. I can never get over one of those opening scenes where the Red October’s political officer is reading from a book owned by ship captain Marko Raimius, played by Sean Connery. The officer reads the line “I have become death, the destroyer of worlds.” I still recall their exchange, with Connery doing his parts in his typical gravelly patrician tone: Connery: It was said by an American. PO: American? Connery: Mmmhmm. He invented the atomic […]



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