Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Drifting in the post-Christmas, pre-New Year’s no man’s land

A Very Phoenix Christmas: A Phoenix Club novella (The Phoenix Club) by CJ Bishop

A Swan for Christmas: A Winter Romance by M.M. Wilde

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*The thumbnail pic is not my cat. Instead, it is a pic of me as a cat in my preferred location and outfit of choice. Time has lost all meaning. I float in a never-ending circuit of sofa, kitchen, laundry closet. Meals are made from remnants of other meals; a bizarre hot and cold buffet of Christmas leftovers and the occasional fruit and veg to ward off scurvy. The candy and chocolate wrappers fill the trash bin. It doesn’t rain but everything outside is cold […]

The First Cut Is The Deepest

The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh

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Read as part of CBR14 Bingo: holiday. I was gifted this book for Christmas a few years ago and used this Bingo as an excuse to finally read it. Again, all love to book bingos for helping me find gems that are lingering on my very own shelves. I used the holiday square as an excuse to get to this one. I had considered donating it a few times, seeing as how the reviews were good but not exactly rapturous. I have a lot of […]

Ladies and Gentlemen, the (reading) Weekend…

Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon

Times Square Red, Times Square Blue by Samuel R. Delany

Queer: A Graphic History by Meg John-Barker, Julia Scheele (illustration)

Widespread Panic by James Ellroy

Quarry's Cut by Max Allan Collins

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Read a variety of books close to and over the weekend. Let’s check it out… Bleeding Edge **** This is a 2021 reread and it’s better than I remember. The ending disappoints but it’s still an entertaining, prescient novel. Pynchon warned us about Too Online culture and yet, here we are.   Times Square Red, Times Square Blue **** I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t this. And I liked it! Mostly. This is like a tale of two books. It’s two essays […]

“I googled ‘monkey brothel’, had an existential crisis, and eventually found the details I wanted in a New Yorker article titled ‘Monkey Business’.”

Sex Power Money by Sara Pascoe

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Frequently, I find myself disagreeing with Sara Pascoe- but it’s not a problem! She’s funny, curious, and well-researched, and she makes no claims about being objective. She leans right into the fact that she her opinions are colored by her past experiences, and she remains open to other ideas and beliefs even if they do not mesh with hers. She is open and honest about her past experiences- especially those that pertain to sex, power, and money. Some are truly harrowing, yet she is a […]

Adult Actress

Debbie Doesn't Do It Anymore by Walter Mosley

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Walter Mosley is one of the more unique and versatile mainstream writers out there. Most noted for his Easy Rawlins mystery series, Mosley has also written some simple noir tales, science and speculative fiction, and other stuff that can be difficult to categorize. This one falls in the other. I’ve always meant to read a non-mystery by Mosley and what better time than being isolated during a pandemic? This one is an interesting tale. There are crime elements but it’s not really a crime story. […]

Freaks, Geeks, and Automobiles

Role Models by John Waters

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Oooh mama, this is not for the faint of heart! If you aren’t already a fan of John Waters and his coterie of misfits and outsiders then this is NOT the place to start! I first became aware of John Waters through the 1990 film Cry-Baby. It used to be on TV fairly frequently in the late 90s/early Aughts, and I would secretly watch bits and pieces of it when my parents weren’t in the room. I had the “flashback” button on the remote primed and […]



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