Cannonball Read 12

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Detective of the People

The Day of the Owl by Leonardo Scascia

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There are plenty of crime novels at home and abroad that function as social critiques for their nation/state/metropolitan setting. Crime fiction is a good stalking horse for social commentary, because much of what passes for social commentary in crime fiction focuses on injustice real or perceived: racism, gender and economic inequality, urban decay, social despair, etc. Some books are better than others at doing this. All could take a lesson from Leonardo Sciascia’s The Day of the Owl. Less a murder mystery and more an examination […]

Call and Answer

Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman

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What a lovely read. The language was lovely, almost lyrical. Very little actually happens but the author takes us on such a journey that we believe so much has happened. This is a relatively short review, simply to resist giving away the pieces of the book you should enjoy by reading it yourself. Elio is a young man falling for an older man who is visiting his house over the summer. The story slowly builds into an obsession. The tension is built through everything that […]

Italian Football (Soccer/Calcio): Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

Winning at All Costs: A Scandalous History of Italian Soccer by John Foot

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Read for Cannonball Read Bingo: place I want to visit. It’s tough to know where to begin describing this book because it is a wild 528-page ride. John Foot is a competent writer and a quality historian but he’s been tasked with a subject that’s overwhelming: the story of soccer in Italy. Foot does a great job at covering the history of Italy as a backdrop to its nation’s favorite sport and I learned a lot. I had no idea how young of a nation […]

The Glory of my Favorite Illustrator

In a Small Kingdom by Tomie dePaola

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The end of March 2018 saw a reissue of a Tomie dePaola classic Big Anthony and the Magic Ring (now called Strega Nona’s Magic Ring). The beginning of March saw a reissue of The Clown of God (last night was the first time I could read without crying my eyes out). And early April saw a rare site: dePaola’s text and illustrations by Doug Salati with, In a Small Kingdom. It is a miracle I can tear myself away from reading them! (Yes, my friends, […]

“Life is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.”

A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

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I’ve always confused A Room with a View with A Room of One’s Own. I recently reviewed a book about how to understand literature, and it recommended one or both of those two books. I can’t remember which. I’ll read them both! Amazon recently released a free version of A Room with a View, so I downloaded and gave it the old college try. ARWAV, as the kids call it (no they don’t) is clever, cheeky, romantic, and Romantic. I may not be the target audience for the book, but […]



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