Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Doin’ No Harm

Lowdown Road by Scott Von Doviak

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Read as part of CBR15bingo: edibles. The plot centers around a large shipment of marijuana, which I guess is technically edible though you can use it in things that are actually edible. Admittedly, I’m reaching here but the suggestion on the OP did include “drugs.” Hixploitation (the author’s words, not mine) — like blaxploitation and other specified identity genres — hit a frenzied peak in the 70s. It was the era of the Film Brats and just as they influenced studio Hollywood, the Bs were […]

I See You

Night Will Find You by Julia Heaberlin

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Read as part of CBR15bingo: picture this. The main character in this book is a psychic who can picture things in her mind by touching certain objects or coming into contact with people or places.  I’m not generally predisposed to fiction based on psychics. At least, I don’t think I am. I don’t seek those books out. And yet, I’ve read and enjoyed three of them within the last year: Please See Us by Caitlin Mullen, Play the Fool by Lina Chern and now this one. I truly did […]

May-July Leftovers

There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History by Rory Carroll

City of Dreams by Don Winslow

Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist by Jennifer Wright

Under Color of Law by Aaron Philip Clark

The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

The Last Quarry by Max Allan Collins

Tripwire by Jack Reacher

Baby Moll by John Farris

Only the Dead Know Brooklyn by Thomas Boyle

The Laundromat: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite by Jake Bernstein

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem

Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball's Brightest Minds Created Sports' Biggest Mess by Evan Drellich

X by Davey Davis

Our Last Season: A Writer, A Fan, A Friendship by Harvey Araton

The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín

Hard Rain by Samantha Jayne Allen

The Boys From Biloxi by John Grisham

Ex Machina Book Four by Brian K. Vaughan

Jacket Weather by Mike DeCapite

Straight Cut by Madison Smartt Bell

The Crust on Its Uppers by Derek Raymond

That Kind of Danger by Donna Masini

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

Spenser Confidential by Ace Atkins

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead

Weyward by Emilia Hart

The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon, I Mean Noel by Ellen Raskin

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

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I usually do these at the end of the month but then I went through a big reading slump March-May. And then I roared back but realized I was behind. So apologies for this being so long. There Will Be Fire **** A good, readable text on a moment in history I knew little about. Even after reading Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing, I still had a lot of problem keeping track of all the socio-political dynamics so it’s good that Rory Carroll makes it accessible […]

Vampires as in Monsters and Vampires as in Monsters-But-Anglos

Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Canas*

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*Note: My alt key and other shortcuts for the “enye” tilde over the “n” of the author’s name is not functioning but her name is Isabel Canas pronounced “Can-yas”. This is the first time I’ve been a person to review a book for the first time on Canonball Read break out the champagne. Vampires of El Norte is an upcoming title from Isabel Canas* and it looks like this is her lane. It’s a great lane. Historical fiction with horror elements – if not fully […]

Do you like cozy mysteries? And small towns? And…MURDER?

Vinyl Resting Place by Olivia Blacke

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Olivia Blacke’s Vinyl Resting Place is the first book in The Record Shop Mysteries, and also my first ever “cozy” mystery. If they’re all like this, I’m in! In Vinyl Resting Place, Juniper Jessup is looking for something new. And maybe, something familiar. After getting laid off from her cool tech job in the Pacific Northwest, she sells her car and moves back to her little hometown in Central Texas. More specifically, she comes home to Cedar River. It’s a little but outside of Austin […]

“The frontier regulars did the job.”

Fort Davis by Robert Wooster

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Last month, my family made our first pilgrimage to West Texas. We stayed at the idyllic Fort Davis State Park, spent some time in Alpine and Marfa, and attended a Star Party at the McDonald Observatory. Quite the weekend! It may not surprise you at all to find out that Fort Davis is named after an actual “Fort Davis.” It was one on a series of forts leading across Texas to help move settlers West. Fort Davis is now a National Historic Site , more […]



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