Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time
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Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Standing on One Two Fifth

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

January 26, 2022 by Jake 1 Comment

Colson Whitehead writing a crime novel is exactly what it sounds so depending on how you feel about him as a writer will impact how you feel about this book. I realize that’s a pedantic thing to say because that’s true of almost every writer. But I emphasize it here because I’ve usually never been able to be in sync with Whitehead’s style. I couldn’t finish Underground Railroad and while I liked parts of Zone One and the concept as a whole, he kept losing me with tangents. Still, […]

Filed Under: Suspense Tagged With: Colson Whitehead, crime, hardboiled, harlem, Harlem Shuffle, historical fiction, New York City

Jake's CBR14 Review No:11 · Genres: Suspense · Tags: Colson Whitehead, crime, hardboiled, harlem, Harlem Shuffle, historical fiction, New York City ·
Rating:
· 1 Comment

PDX

Derailed by Mary Keliikoa

October 5, 2021 by Jake Leave a Comment

Read as part of CBR13Bingo: New Series. The Kelly Pruett series debuted in 2020. Book two came out this year.  In the “About the Author” section, the reader learns that Mary Keliikoa didn’t get the chance to publish this book until she was 50, despite trying to begin a writing career in her 20s. Things like family and work (she is, or was a lawyer) kept getting in the way. I appreciate that story a lot. And perhaps it made me appreciate her debut effort […]

Filed Under: Mystery Tagged With: cbr13bingo, Derailed, hardboiled, Kelly Pruett, Mary Keliikoa, mystery, Oregon, Portland

Jake's CBR13 Review No:152 · Genres: Mystery · Tags: cbr13bingo, Derailed, hardboiled, Kelly Pruett, Mary Keliikoa, mystery, Oregon, Portland ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Lightning Round

Tonguebreaker by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Batman Earth One, Vol. 3 by Geoff Johns

Solomon's Vineyard by Jonathan Latimer

Antartica: Journeys to the South Pole by Walter Dean Myers

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

July 12, 2021 by Jake Leave a Comment

A few reviews of shorter books that I read quickly over the weekend and didn’t have extra time to flesh out… Tonguebreaker ***** Coming to terms with a society that doesn’t want you based on your body…and creating your own space instead…has to be a challenging thing. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha bares her soul to the world in this collection of poems and one-act plays. Her use of language to lecture gripped me and her exploration of what it means to live in this world, to […]

Filed Under: Graphic Novels/Comic Books, Mystery, Non-Fiction, Poetry Tagged With: Antartica, Batman, Batman Earth One, BIPOC, Disability, exploration, Geoff Johns, Graphic Novel, hardboiled, Jonathan Latimer, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, mystery, New York City, Newberry Medal winner, poetry, Rebecca Stead, Solomon's Vineyard, Tonguebreaker, walter dean myers, Young Adult

Jake's CBR13 Review No:110 · Genres: Graphic Novels/Comic Books, Mystery, Non-Fiction, Poetry · Tags: Antartica, Batman, Batman Earth One, BIPOC, Disability, exploration, Geoff Johns, Graphic Novel, hardboiled, Jonathan Latimer, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, mystery, New York City, Newberry Medal winner, poetry, Rebecca Stead, Solomon's Vineyard, Tonguebreaker, walter dean myers, Young Adult ·
· 0 Comments

Hardboiled On the Go

September 19, 2018 by Jake 1 Comment

It’s going to be difficult to draw out 250 words on this book. Not because it was bad. I rather enjoyed it. But because it’s really not much more than a fun, slim hardboiled tale. But I’m game to try. Denis Johnson is considered by many to be one of the best writers of the last few decades. I myself have never read him so I can’t comment on that. I’ve been meaning to get to Tree of Smoke for several years now. This one might encourage […]

Filed Under: Suspense Tagged With: crime, Denis Johnson, hardboiled, nobody move, Suspense, thriller

Jake's CBR10 Review No:23 · Genres: Suspense · Tags: crime, Denis Johnson, hardboiled, nobody move, Suspense, thriller ·
Rating:
· 1 Comment

“I don’t believe in anything, but I’m too much of a gambler not to be affected by a lot of things.”

July 17, 2018 by Halbs Leave a Comment

I saw “There Will Be Blood” in the theater when it came out, and when the lights came up I hated it. Over the next few days, certain scenes or lines would come back to me and I would think, Oh, that’s pretty good. The movie kept rising to the front of my mind, and after a week I thought it was great. The same thing happened to me with Hammett’s classic hard-boiled mystery, The Glass Key. I didn’t enjoy it much until the last few pages, […]

Filed Under: Mystery Tagged With: Dashiell Hammett, hardboiled

Halbs's CBR10 Review No:47 · Genres: Mystery · Tags: Dashiell Hammett, hardboiled ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

Didn’t like it then, now I do. It’s magic!

March 3, 2016 by narfna 2 Comments

If you read my reviews regularly, you’ll probably know how much I love The Dresden Files, but that I initially didn’t like it very much, to the point where I gave up after reading book three way back in 2009. I just didn’t think the series was for me. That I thought that at the time is alternately hilarious and horrifying. I almost didn’t pick this series back up, and so I almost missed out on what has turned out to be more and more […]

Filed Under: Audiobooks, Fantasy, Mystery Tagged With: Detective Fiction, fantasy, hardboiled, James Marsters, Jim Butcher, mystery, narfna, Noir, storm front, the Dresden Files, Urban Fantasy

narfna's CBR8 Review No:39 · Genres: Audiobooks, Fantasy, Mystery · Tags: Detective Fiction, fantasy, hardboiled, James Marsters, Jim Butcher, mystery, narfna, Noir, storm front, the Dresden Files, Urban Fantasy ·
Rating:
· 2 Comments
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