Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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The Pokes, The City

The Dallas Cowboys: The Outrageous History of the Biggest, Loudest, Most Hated, Best Loved Football Team in America by Joe Nick Patoski

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Back in February 2020 (aka The Before Times), I visited my in-laws who had moved to the Dallas metro area the previous summer. I had never been to Texas, much less Dallas, so I was excited to see the city. It was…something. Not good or bad, just different. The vibes there were really strange. The weather was weird (somehow hot and cold simultaneously). It felt like someone used hundred dollar bills to paper over cardboard boxes and sterile, charmless buildings. But it still had a […]

Not a book for me.

Memorial by Bryan Washington

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I really need to stop ordering the lit-fic option from Book of the Month. It so very rarely ends well. The premise here is that Mike and Benson are a couple. Mike is a chef and Benson is a daycare worker. Mike’s father is dying of cancer, and so he decides one day to go to Japan to mend their relationship, leaving Benson alone in their one bedroom apartment with his visiting mother, who only arrived that morning, also from Japan. Also, their relationship is […]

Not for me. #CBRBingo – Debut

Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore

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This was the first book in a while that my book club didn’t really agree on. We were split down the middle, actually. (I’m glad we’re still doing book club by Zoom but I miss hanging out with my people in person, and I miss all the yummy food. I know everyone misses everyone and everything right now, but I wanted to say it anyway.) If you can’t tell by my rating, I was more on the dislike side of it, though I didn’t hate […]

Flawed Protagonist

Sam Houston and the American Southwest by Randolph B. Campbell

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Any digging into the past dredges up shameful events and ideas. In 2020 this is especially true in the South. A mix of racism, cruelty, xenophobia, tribalism, and more is immediately obvious. That’s no secret. There are bright spots, though. People like Sam Houston remind us that even in dark times one has the ability to stand up for principles and humanity. Therefore, this book contains some hypertimely encouragement for summer 2020. The first lesson I took is that Houston did what he wanted to, […]

How He Wins

Texas By The Tail by Jim Thompson

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If you saw the movie Uncut Gems, this book answers the question “What if Uncut Gems but Texas?” It’s wild. The year of Jim Thompson continues with one I’ve wanted to get to for some time. The story is familiar: a perpetual loser looking to make the big score, with an attractive woman on his arm and the bad guys always at his back. The bad guys often carry a sheen of legitimacy, whether it’s oil or land money. This is a recurring theme in Thompson novels, his […]



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