Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Famiglia

Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires by Selwyn Raab

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After reading Michael Cannell’s A Brotherhood Betrayed, I had an itch to scratch for mob books. I read a few others but all roads led to me finally tackling Selwyn Raab’s massive tome on New York’s famous five families. Let’s just say the itch has been scratched…raw. This is as good of a book as could reasonably be expected, considering its ambitious and unwieldy goal of writing a narrative about all five New York mafia families. Having read a lot of mob origin stories lately, I’m […]

“My book-ordering history is definitely going to get me flagged by some evil government algorithm. Lots and lots of books about Vichy France and the French Resistance and more books than any civilian could possibly need about spy craft and fascism. Luckily, there is a Jean Rhys novel in there and a book for Eli called How to Draw Robots. That’ll throw them off the scent.”

Weather by Jenny Offill

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Jenny Offill’s latest exercise in approaching anxiety with compassion, Weather, kicks off right before the 2016 election. While she isn’t that exact- you come to realization through context clues- the time and feeling is accurate and thick in the air. Just like in Dept. of Speculation, Offill packs years worth of pathos into a collection close to just 200 pages. Her economy of vocabulary is something that I strive to possess. Our narrator is worried about wasting time; she sits on an unfinished masters while answering […]

“The dark shadow of crime spreads right and left, from the Penitentiary and the Workhouse, over all the institutions, the Asylum, the Alms-House and Charity Hospital; so that, in the minds of the people at large, all suffer alike from an evil repute.”

Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad & Criminal in 19th-Century New York by Stacy Horn

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Damnation Island was a book I pulled off my shelves when quarantining and social distancing began back in March. I had read Ten Days a Madwoman in February and I decided an adult non-fiction trip to Blackwell Island was needed to balance and expand the accounting in Noyes’s book. I was right, there is much important history here – particularly pertinent to our times as we reexamine and revisit the functioning of corrections, and how we as a society care for those around us. Often […]

Topical

Zone One by Colson Whitehead

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I love New York City. It’s why I frequently read books that are set there. I could go into all the reasons why but if you love New York City too, you probably know ’em. And if you don’t, that’s cool, it’s not for everyone. Obviously, New York City is not right now what it normally is due to the coronavirus shutdown. It’s painful for me to consider as I know the city has so much life in it. Human life yes but also the […]

Brooklyn Girls

The Lonely Witness by William Boyle

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My first William Boyle novel I was able to finish. I gave Gravesend a shot and it wasn’t working for me. I do want to get through Boyle’s other novels, mostly because they take place in the urban recesses of New York City. His in particular all center around non-glamour Brooklyn. I like all kinds of New York City novels, including those. It’s why I want to keep trying with Boyle, despite not being as grabbed by his books as I want to be. Boyle has often […]

A great debut–but I was spoiled by his other book.

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

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After reading and enjoying A Gentleman in Moscow, I picked up Rules of Civility, a book I’d checked out from the library before but never actually read.  Tl;dr: It was good, but not as good as Moscow.   I think Gentleman in Moscow corrected some of the things that annoyed me in this book, was slightly better edited, and had more of a “punch” that resonated long after finishing the book. The story is about Katie Kontent, and her life in New York in the late […]



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