Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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The Swede.

American Pastoral by Philip Roth

The Prague Orgy by Philip Roth

Zuckerman Unbound by Philip Roth

Patrimony by Philip Roth

The Anatomy Lesson by Philip Roth

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American Pastoral – 5/5 Stars This is the second book of the “American Trilogy” by Philip Roth. I’ve previously read The Human Stain, and this book also involved Nathan Zuckerman as guide and narrator (and in this case, author) like that book did, and while he spends a lot of time telling parts of his own story, it’s not exactly a Nathan Zuckerman novel in its own right. Zuckerman has been contacted by a high school hero of his, a local athlete and local boy made […]

It was the last daylight hour of a December afternoon more than twenty years ago–I was twenty-three…

The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth

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CBR12Bingo – Fresh Start This is the first Nathan Zuckerman novel and the only previous ones I’ve read were The Human Stain in which he plays the narrator, but not the protagonist, and Exit Ghost, the final novel that ties up loose ends that I didn’t know existed when I read it. In this novel, we find the older Zuckerman looking back at himself at 23. He’s visiting with a renowned Jewish writer (who wrote and published in Yiddish and was translated into English) who we cannot […]

American Trilogy #2 – holds up to the first, but you don’t need me to tell you that Philip Roth knows what he is doing.

I Married a Communist by Philip Roth

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Philip Roth’s American Pastoral was one of my favorite reads of 2017, Pulitzer winning novels rarely let me down, and this was no exception. I did the audio of this book, and was riveted by the writing and the story. So, I had the second of his The American trilogy in my To Read pile when a wonderful CBR Book Exchange buddy gifted it to me…two year ago? Three? I’ve had it for a minute, but I decided this was the year! They say you […]

Of course it would cost something, but he was an expert in cutting corners; and when there were no more corners left he would make circles rounder.

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The Magic Barrel – 5/5 Stars This story collection came out in 1959 and contains the well known title story, but also has several other very good stories. It won the National Book Award as well. As I have previously stated in reviews, the age of the writer (here in a kind of debut effort) lends itself to an already mature and thoughtful work (this was also true for many of Raymond Chandler’s stories as well as the story collection A Lucky Man by Jamel […]

Triptych of no real consequence

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Philip Roth – The Breast 2/5  Cynthia Ozick – The Shawl 4/5    Vladimir Nabokov – The Eye 3/5     So these three short novels or novellas don’t really have much to do with one another ostensibly, but I read them one after the other on a Friday sick day and thought a little about their connections or rather what connections I might draw on them. To start, I will tell you what each one of them is about. The Shawl starts off in the […]

Winding Down

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Operation Shylock – Philip Roth 4/5 Stars This is one of those books I got really excited about when I was like 20 and I bought or got ahold of and then never read. In fact, I remember sitting on my brother’s couch and reading one page and being like OH NO and not reading any more. I like Philip Roth a lot, warts and all. He’s ridiculous and writes a lot about maleness, but I am male and it sometimes connects with me. In […]



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