Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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vel veeter's Reviews:

Snowball’s Chance – John Reed (2002)

Snowball's Chance by John Reed

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There’s always the issue of what happens to our sense of the original in parodic writing, or painting, or other. In some cases, the original work ends up standing up against the new piece in new and enlightening ways. In other cases, the parody might very well become the new text. In many, the two texts have a kind of dialog and negotiation of the spaces between. And in some cases, nothing happens, and the parody never even registers. Given how very conscientious I was […]

How to tell When You’re Tired

How to Tell When You're Tired by Reg Thierault

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This is a book of “cultural studies” about what it’s like to work in labor-intensive blue collar jobs, written by someone who worked a number of those jobs, as well as, has the educational background to apply a few theories and analysis to the study as well. It’s not an academic work in that way, but is clearly cognizant of the long history of labor studies. The book itself is a little more like a memoir, but a memoir framed around analysis as well. It […]

Surviving Autocracy – Masha Gessen (2020)

Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen

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Written in April of 2020, there’s a kind of hopefulness and direness in the epilogue of this book, which looks at some of the various and specific ways the Trump administration, and the GOP at large, have either specifically engineered or stumbled blindly into the realm of authoritarianism, as well as some of the failures of understanding that anti-fascist (and anti-aligned people) have had in the face of this. The direness is that looking over the previous four years Masha Gessen doesn’t like the trends […]

The Women’s Room – Marilyn French (1977)

The Women's Room by Marilyn French

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This is one of those novels that has a place in time and history as being both revolutionary in certain ways, while also possibly being in danger of becoming quaint in others. For me, this book has the particular feel of a book saying something very important, but also in a way that’s stamped across the cover. It has the feel of socialist novels from the 30s in that same way: saying something important! So taken at that level, it’s a very successful novel. It […]

On Writers and Writing – Margaret Atwood (2002)

On Writers and Writing by Margaret Atwood

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This book began, we’re explained, as a series of lectures in England about the nature of writing. Atwood approaches this subject with some playfulness and hesitancy, but ultimately divides her talks into some distinct categories and topics: “Orientation: Who Do you think you are?”; “Duplicity: The jekyll hand, the hyde hand, and the slippery double”; “Dedication: The Great God Pen”; “Temptation: Prospero, the Wizard of Oz, Mephisto &co”; “Communion: Nobody to Nobody”; and “Descent: Negotiating with the Dead”. From these topics she is able to […]

Landlocked – Doris Lessing (1966)

Landlocked by Doris Lessing

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I guess I could explain the plot or something here, but this is the fourth book of a five book series, and while there is a plot, it’s also a lot like the other books here in this series. We have Martha (nee Quest) marries to Anton Hesse. She finds herself weary at the end of WWII both from the exhaustion of working in the local war office, but also from the sheer distance she feels from the actual combat and conflict in much different […]



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