Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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vel veeter's Reviews:

Time Enough for Love – Robert Heinlein (1973)

Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein

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You will be forgiven if you kind of can’t stand Lazarus Long, and therefore don’t really want to read a 600 page about a man who is so appealing to women that he’s been married dozens of times and sired hundreds of children. But when dealing with longevity, it’s also reasonable to dislike some of the products of it, while still respecting the experiences they’ve been through. After 2300 years of life, Lazarus Long is tired, he’s sad, and he’s mad that he’s being rejuvenated […]

Venus on the Half-Shell – Kilgore Trout (1974)

Venus on the Half-Shell by Kilgore Trout

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I won’t hold it against you if you like this book. It’s not for me to judge. I just ended up hating it, or hating that I was reading it. If you’re not familiar with it, or the name rings a bell, you’re like likely familiar with Kilgore Trout as the fictional author who pops into various Kurt Vonnegut stories and novels. He’s in Slaughterhouse 5, he’s in Breakfast of Champions, and God Bless You Mr Rosewater, among others. One of the lovely things about […]

Terrorists & Novelists – Diane Johnson (1982)

Terrorists & Novelists by Diane Johnson

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In spite of how good the title of this collection is, first published in 1982 by the write Diane Johnson, the essays that follow rarely break ground on ideas that go beyond interesting enough. The collection mostly deals with writers and figures from the 1970s and earlier (a few earlier brought back into conversation by dint books about them), but mostly contemporary to the publishing. This actually makes this collection a lot more interesting not for what it says, but as a kind of artifact […]

Ghosties

20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill

The Green Man by Kingsley Amis

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20th Century Ghosts – 3/5 Stars Decidedly a mixed bag for me on this first collection of Joe Hill stories. What’s interesting in part is that the ways in which this book is talked about on the cover, in the introduction, and other places really seems to indicate that they weren’t sure Joe Hill was going to make it, or wanted people to take him seriously. Without a doubt he’s a serious writer, and very talented, but that sort of “son of the most famous […]

Mixed Bag Again

Escapade by Evelyn Scott

Chess Story by Stefan Zweig

A Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler

Sun and Steel by Yukio Mishima

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Escapade – 4 Stars Evelyn Scott is a little lost to the ages, but might be making a comeback in awareness/popularity. She a very well known novel called The Wave, which takes place during the Civil War (I haven’t read it, but I am hoping it’s much better than that other very well known Civil War novel at the same time), and a few memoir books. This book was written when she was about 30, and several years after the events in it happened. When […]

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders (2021)

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders

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I do think this book is pretty wonderful in a lot of ways. I also thinking it’s a solution in search of a problem in some ways, or maybe a great idea struggling for an audience. The premise here is that George Saunders, along with being a writer, is an MFA professor who teaches creative writing. If you’ve ever taken a creative writing class in college, you are usually treated to someone who clearly sees fiction (or poetry, or nonfiction) from a much different perspective […]



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