Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Reading about computers in the ’80s is such a hoot!

Twice Shy by Dick Francis

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CBR14 BINGO: Dough, because it centers on horse racing and gambling BINGO: Series, Funky, Star, Verse, Dough My husband has a collection of Dick Francis novels, most of which he inherited from his grandfather, so they have sentimental value. When I was pondering what to read for the “Dough” category, he suggested giving one of them a try since they focus on horse racing and gambling. Dick Francis was a British steeplechase jockey who, post-career, wrote a weekly racing column and then branched out into […]

They’re Out!

Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series by Eliot Asinof

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Read as part of CBR14Bingo: Scandal. The 1919 World Series was scandalized by eight members of the Chicago White Sox agreeing to throw it as part of a gambling conspiracy.  Bill James is a legend among baseball fans. His greatest rep is as the Analytics Guy but my first taste of his work was his text on the Hall of Fame, in which he critiques the process by which people enter. James devoted a chapter to baseball’s most famous banned people: Pete Rose and Shoeless […]

When You’re Too Hard Core for Raymond Chandler

Fast One by Paul Cain

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Bingo square – People This noir classic was created when Paul Cain patched together five stories that he had written for the detective magazine Black Mask.  Published in 1933, it soon became famous as the book that was just too hardboiled to be fashioned into a movie.  And seriously, it is, even by today’s standards.  Daaaaamn son. Paul Cain was by then a slippery character in Hollywood.  That was not his real name, nobody was quite sure where he was from (spoiler, Iowa, actually), and […]

A Mother-Daughter Thing

The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers by Bridgett M. Davis

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I found this book on a list of unusual true crime reads. I suppose on some level this can be classified as a “true crime” book. Illegal gambling is a crime and I guess Fannie Davis was technically a criminal if you’re going by the letter of the law. But this is really more than that. It’s a story about a daughter’s relationship with her mother, how it evolved over the years, how her mother embraced her unusual profession and used it to make a […]

Casino

The Vapors: A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America's Forgotten Capital of Vice by David Hill

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Part of my family is from Arkansas. I never knew Hot Springs to be such a den of vice! This is about as entertaining as true crime can get, especially if you like mob tales as I do. There are three running threads in the story: Dane, Owney, and Hazel. Dane becomes the top man for gambling in the city almost by accident but does all he can to legalize it. His ideas are actually ingenious but he’s consistently working against Arkansas’ theocratic bureaucracy. Owney, […]

What happens at Vega’s….

My Once and Future Duke by Caroline Linden

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So this is a fairly standard historical romance, the first in a new series by Ms Linden – The Wagers of Sin.  I feel like I’ve read several books lately with a similar premise – young, beautiful woman is left nearly destitute after the death of loved ones, and seeks to make a fortune by gambling.  And in the course of this gambling, she meets handsome, wealthy lord who falls into lust with her and must have her. In this case, we have Sophie Graham, […]



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