Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Patsy sat by herself at the beginning of the evening, eating a Hershey bar.

Moving On by Larry McMurtry

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This book is a lot of book. It’s a very plot heavy book that takes place starting around 1960, primarily in and around Houston, but also takes forays into Los Angeles, Wyoming, and other places around the country. We are mostly into the young marriage of Jim and Patsy Carpenter, starting the summer before Jim is meant to start his English PhD at Rice University. Patsy is mostly along for the ride as Jim wants to further explore his interest in the rodeo photography as […]

You take too many train trips.

Streets of Laredo by Larry McMurtry

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I was wary of this one going in. When I finished reading Lonesome Dove a few years back, and was floored by it, I picked up the other books in the series. I started not with this immediate sequel, but with Dead Man’s Walk and Comanche Moon, both of which I found rather disappointing. There’s something almost oafish and parodic about those books. So this one lingered in my consciousness for a long time. I have to say, this is a very very good book, and more so, a really […]

In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases.

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The World According to Garp – 4/5 Stars I am trying to figure out books from the late 1970s and early 1980s, because it’s like the first time that authors really wanted to dig into sexual politics in some ways that are interesting, definitely alarming, but also handled with a kind of lack of care, or certainly a different context. This book was a huge hit when it came out and won several awards. It’s generally very good, but there’s a weird weird weird scene […]

There was no point in trying to stop a husband from going away

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By Sorrow’s River – 4/5 Stars When I reviewed the second book of this quartet I talked about the shifting tone from the first novel. I am more clear that this newer tone, one more serious and gallows at times as opposed to a little too silly, is the better and more suited tone for the novel. I also reviewed the novel Comanche Moon written a few years and I found that tone too mercurial for the subject matter. This one is really starting to […]

I’m a fastidious bookman and have never liked reading books with library markings or other messy defects.

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As you can see, I’m on a bit of a Larry McMurtry kick: The Literary Life – 4/5 Stars Like his previous memoir that I also recently reviewed, The Literary Life, is hyper-focused on his writing career. For the most part, he doesn’t repeat any important stories, though he does trace over a few events and ideas that have come up before. I think to enjoy this one — which reviews of the other books suggest — you have to be interested in the publishing […]

All plurals are ultimately singular.

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Packing My Library – 4/5 Stars This short memoir/thought piece takes it cue from the Walter Benjamin essay I will write about afterward and addresses what it means to pack one’s library away, presumably for good, as one heads into the final stages of life. Alberto Manguel is rounding on 70 and after decades of moving through and all over the world, he seems to have reached a place where he’s able to give up his library. His sentiments are especially interesting if you take […]



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