Cannonball Read 11

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Beneath the facade of glitz and glamour

The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin

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“The scandalous, headline-making, and enthralling friendship between literary legend Truman Capote and peerless socialite Babe Paley.” This is a fictional telling of the socialite “Swans” of the 1950s and early 1960s that focuses mainly on Barbara “Babe” Paley, and her friendship with Truman Capote; however it includes many other famous women such as Slim Keith, C. Z. Guest, Gloria Guinness, Gloria Vanderbilt, and Pamela Churchill.  These are the fabulously wealthy ladies who lunch, dress to impress, marry often and love to gossip.  The era was one of elegance and perfect outward appearance, though beneath the surface lay many insecurities.  Babe […]

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1/17/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:4 |

“I thought that Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman. I thought so right up to the moment that I cut his throat.”

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

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Last year I made a grand plan to reread some of the books I read in high school and college. While I read several books for the second and third time (and in the instances of Perks of Being a Wallflower and Ender’s Game the 8th or 9th) I didn’t manage to read any of the books I read in AP English or my freshman lit course besides A Prayer for Owen Meany and The Great Gatsby. I guess I just hate the thought of missing out on the chance to read something new and wonderful. In Cold Blood had been on my list of books to revisit […]

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3/26/2018 's CBR10 Review No:41 |

A Whole Bunch of Truman Capote

The Complete Stories of Truman Capote, The Grass Harp, and Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

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The Complete Stories of Truman Capote I think I answered my questions about Truman Capote with this whirlwind look at most of his writing. I read In Cold Blood a few years back and I like it a lot. I think it’s really strong, but I think more than anything, it’s too rich a backstory, too big of a book, and the movie is so good that I couldn’t help but love it. I liked a lot of these stories in this collection. Some of them were really really good, but many of them were either kind of meh or un-impactful. […]

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7/8/2017 's CBR9 Review No:267 |

In which I show once again that I’m probably better suited to popular fiction

Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

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I knew a Holly Golightly once. We met in an art class in high school, and went on to be friends in college, before I fell in love with someone else. We would spend time together after class: she taught me that putting my loofah in with the laundry extended its life and kept it cleaner. I accompanied her on a modeling gig, where the artist she posed for belittled me for pronouncing Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’s name without a proper French accent. She ended up allowing a vagrant named Cowboy Bill (if memory serves) to move into her apartment. […]

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5/17/2017 's CBR9 Review No:39 |

“Never love a wild thing…If you let yourself love a wild thing. You’ll end up looking at the sky.”

Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

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While I was gearing up to read Fifth Avenue, 5 AM (and by gearing up I mean placing it on my library request list) when it struck me that, while I’ve seen the film numerous times, I’ve never read the novella in which Holly Golightly is based! Our unnamed narrator is reflecting on the past after an old friend calls him with news about a woman, Holly, he used to know. Holly Golightly has left her home town and reinvented herself as a society girl. She drinks all night, sleeps all day and has numerous older men footing her bills. She also […]

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5/14/2017 's CBR9 Review No:55 |

A kookie little romance

Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the New Woman by Sam Wasson

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This was a selection for the May nonfiction book club, and it lost. I’m so disappointed, you guys. But, I will persevere. Wasson recounts the history behind both Truman Capote’s 1958 novel, and the 1961 film directed by Blake Edwards and starring the inimitable and unconquerable Audrey Hepburn. Overall, this is a pretty good snapshot of Truman Capote, Audrey Hepburn, the film industry of the late 50s and early 60s, and the shifting beauty standards of the era. All of which amounts to a pretty interesting read that nevertheless feels a little in the thin side. Wasson does a nice […]

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4/30/2017 's CBR9 Review No:34 |

Sympathy for the Devil.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

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“Nonetheless, he found it possible to look at the man beside him without anger—with, rather, a measure of sympathy—for Perry Smith’s life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another.” – – – I remember being gobsmacked by this book when I read it for the first time six years ago, and now upon re-read, I find it’s just as good. In fact, it’s one of those books where the satisfaction comes not from the “what” happening next, but the “how” and, perhaps more importantly, the “why.” This is still […]

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12/28/2016 's CBR8 Review No:152 |

The Truest of True Crime, predecessor to everything

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

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I had heard of In Cold Blood because of its resonance in popular culture, as it is considered to be a true crime masterpiece, if not THE best true crime book ever written.  My favorite podcast “Literary Disco” did an episode on some Capote stories, which jogged my memory that I had never tackled this classic, and I decided to make this one a goal for the year.  I “read” this via audiobook, and I highly recommend both that format, and the book. In 1959 a well known and much beloved family, the Clutter’s, were murdered in their rural farmhouse. This novel tells the […]

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6/23/2016 's CBR8 Review No:15 |


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