Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Jump Up and Feel Down

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

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Reading about the rise and fall of the Sacklers, I kept thinking about the futurism of the 1950s. I had been to Futureland in Disney this past fall and it reminded me how obsessed people were in the post-war world with discovering things that dramatically enhanced life. This isn’t a bad sentiment to have, I suppose. I’d love nothing more than a robot butler to cook my food and clean up after me. But how does one deal with pain? It calls to mind Linda […]

“I’ll die young, but it’s like kissing God”

Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe

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Bingo: Monster (The Sacklers themselves, in case that’s not obvious) I read Say Nothing a few months ago, and it was excellent–so good that Empire of Pain immediately shot to the top of my TBR list. Empire of Pain is the story of the Sackler family–the family behind Purdue Pharma, the pharmaceutical company responsible for Oxycontin. I’ve read books before about the opioid epidemic and the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma have been mentioned–but this deep dive into the family was FASCINATING. Empire of Pain is divided into three parts: the first […]

“Outrage is conditioned not by the nature of the atrocity but by the affiliation of the victim and the perpetrator”

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

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After having read two of his books in (relatively) quick succession I can say with full confidence that Patrick Radden Keefe is an excellent writer and a dogged journalist. He was starting with topics that I wanted to read about, even if they were difficult, but he was able to draw me in in ways I wasn’t expecting and achieved more than I had anticipated. Say Nothing Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland takes on the bitter conflict in […]



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