Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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vel veeter's Reviews:

Boone’s Lick – Larry McMurtry (2000)

Boone's Lick by Larry McMurtry

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I like when Larry McMurtry writes about the Old West in smaller scopes, even if at the end he tries to broaden that scope out in unsuccessful ways. This short novel begins with a a sheriff visiting a local farmstead and having his horse shot out from under him by the matriarch of the house who, according to her statement, mistook the horse for an elk. The family is hungry and they butcher the horse, so who knows what the truth is. Not our narrator, […]

Entangled Life – Merlin Sheldrake (2020)

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

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This is a very interesting and fascinating book with a little bit of an identity crisis. As a primer into the world of the interconnected of fungi with animal life, human life, plant life, and ecosystems this popular science text is a really eye-opening text. Sheldrake is effective at being a passionate advocate for fungi awareness, as well as predicted skepticism at some of the claims made here and addressing them as he goes. He presents an overview of the research, the history of research, […]

Generosity – Richard Powers (2009)

Generosity by Richard Powers

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I genuinely liked the writing in this novel a lot, and some of the thinking that went into it. It goes off in an unexpected direction about a third the way through that becomes the major source of plot for the novel, but I ended up thinking it was a lot less successful than the direction the novel seemed to be taking initially. We begin in Chicago where a burnt out writer and editor is beginning an adjunct job with a local small college teaching […]

Heaven’s Prisoners – James Lee Burke (1988)

Heaven's Prisoners by James Lee Burke

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The second in the Dave Robicheaux novels. I liked the first one a lot, and did not like this one nearly as much. I will fully admit that when I was a teenager, I put some energy into finding a tape of the truly terrible movie version of this because of some famous nudity. The idea of Alec Baldwin as a grizzled Vietnam vet and retired police detective is absurd, not discounting that he’s ten years too young for the role. The mystery begins with […]

Mixed Bag III

Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales by Michael Chabon et

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

This Telling by Cheryl Strayed

Sweet Virginia by Caroline Kepnes

Shine Pamela Shine by Kate Atkinson

Halfway to Free by Emma Donaghue

Graceful Burdens by Roxanna Gay

Bear Witness by Mark Gaitskill

The Contractors by Lisa Ko

Sun of a Beach by Mia Sosa

The Wonderful Adventure of Nils by Selma Lagerlof

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Thrilling Tales – 2/5 Stars I’ve read this book twice previously and more or less liked a lot of the stories. But this reread was pretty sour for a few reasons. The story collection is ostensibly a genre collection of adventure stories posed off of Michael Chabon’s childhood of reading such stories. There’s probably references in the introduction to Edgar Rice Burroughs and Edgar Wallace and other Edgars. And so, when I bought and read this story in college, I felt more or less that […]

Earthlings (2018) – Sayaka Murata

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

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CW: Child abuse/sex abuse A devastating follow up (not a sequel, just the same writer) to Convenience Store Woman, which I also reread and enjoyed more the second time. This story begins with the close narration of a young girl who believes she is a kind of outsider to the world, has a crush on her cousin, and finds weirdness and joy in different parts of her life. She is sexually abused by her teacher (and narrated in such sadness) and this causes her to […]



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