Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Remember Slenderman? Here’s the case that made him famous outside the internet

Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls by Kathleen Hale

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In 2014, in Wisconsin, a young girl was nearly killed. There were a number of reasons this case was unusual, but among the top were that it was perpetrated by two 12-year old girls and that the apparent motive revolved around the fictional and internet-famous Slenderman. While this sounds fascinating, it was less about Slenderman and more about the delusions kids can talk themselves into. What was more relevant is the fact that one of the two girls was experiencing undiagnosed schizophrenia at the time. […]

Fashionable People Doing Unfashionable Things

Deliberate Cruelty, Truman Capote, the Millionaire's Wife, and the Murder of the Century by Roseanne Montillo

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Content Warning: This book deals with murder, as the title suggests. The book also addresses spousal abuse and suicide. This review mentions the murder but does not touch on the other topics. The novel opens with a bit of snarky back-and-forth between Truman Capote and the Millionaire’s Wife of the title (Ann Woodward), establishing that the two are not on friendly terms. She allegedly uses a slur about his lifestyle (Truman Capote was openly gay) to describe him, and he calls her “Mrs. Bang Bang” […]

“It was the sad privilege of blood relations to love him despite all.”

This House of Grief by Helen Garner

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In Australia on Father’s Day, 2005, a car carrying a man and his three young sons careened into a dam. Robert Farquharson survived, but his sons drowned. The ensuing murder trial would drag on for seven long years. You really do stumble across books on Goodreads that you’d never get to read otherwise. I have never heard of this case or this author before, but when it popped up in my recommendations, I was intrigued enough to put in a request at the library – […]

December 2023 Leftovers

Mandarin Plaid by SJ Rozan

Lady Killer, Volume 1 by Joëlle Jones

Zatanna: The Jewel of Gravesend by Alys Arden

Batman, Vol. 6: Graveyard Shift by Scott Snyder

The Confession by Domenic Stansberry

A Friend is a Gift You Give Yourself by William Boyle

Joe Dogs: The Life and Crimes of a Mobster by Joseph Iannuzzi

Robert B. Parker's Cheap Shot by Ace Atkins

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow

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Merry Christmas. We may need to dispense with the cold/snow songs. They’re about as realistic as Santa at this point. Mandarin Plaid **** SJ Rozan continues to improve with each book in this series. This one has layers and moves well to its conclusion. I’m not gonna be totally sold on a white person writing from the perspective of an AAPI one but I think Rozan does a better job with it than she did in the first one. May have to go long with […]

GENTLEMAN THIS IS DEMOCRACY MANIFEST

Carnage: A succulent Chinese meal, Mr Rent-a-Kill, and the Australian Manson Murders by Mark Dapin

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 A true crime jaunt about a meme-man. Democracy Manifest/Succulent Chinese Meal Guy is a rather famous (and ludicrous) arrest video taken in Australia in the early 90’s. If you have never seen the video in question, I’ll pop in here now for your viewing pleasure. While notable at the time, it became absolute meme fodder about ten years ago when someone decided to put it online.  And once you watch the video, you’ll have no doubt as to why this happened. The man being arrested […]

The Other Side of the Sun

The Last Yakuza: Life and Death in the Japanese Underworld by Jake Adelstein

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The first time Martin Scorsese called Henry Hill after reading Hill’s gangster memoir Wiseguy, he told Hill: I’ve been waiting for this book for ten years. To which Hill replied: I’ve been waiting for this call for ten years. Scorsese had wanted to tell a tale of mobsters that didn’t revolve around Vito Corleone-esque bosses and power players. He wanted the audience to know about the gangster-next-door, the types he grew up with around Manhattan’s Little Italy. He found the story he was looking for in Hill’s […]



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