vel veeter – Page 139 – Cannonball Read 17

History began to exert it fascination upon me when I was about six, through the medium of the Twins series by Lucy Fitch Perkins.

Praticing History by Barbara Tuchman

A Bend in the River by VS Naipaul

Deadlock by Sara Paretsky

The Sweet Science by AJ Liebling

Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

December 24, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Practicing History – 4/5 Stars This is a collection of essays, mostly about history writing, by the American historian Barbara Tuchman. This is my third Tuchman book, and the least “history” one. Her other two books, The First Salute and March to Folly, were both history driven, but also argument driven. This book’s essays cover a wide ranging set of essays, some specifically focused on historical questions like Mao and figures connected to WWI, while the bulk (or at least it feels this way) were mostly about the […]

Nothing is harder, than to do nothing.

How to do Nothing by Jenny Odell

December 17, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

I did like this book as a meditation on a problem, but it’s not “How to do nothing…” and it’s not an actionable plan. Instead it’s a polemic on a real problem in nice terms. Odell uses various ideas connected to Zen, philosophy, art, brain science, and radical detachment in various examples to try to address the fact that all of society (in broadly defined and inaccurate terms) is addicted to phones, tv, and computers. It’s funny because cultural critics from Neil Postman, Baudrillard, Zizek, […]

Rooter was at once the most difficult and the most helpful of the pequeninos.

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

Dakota by Kathleen Norris

Out of Sight by Elmore Leonard

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart

December 15, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Speaker for the Dead – 4/5 Stars This is the direct sequel to Ender’s Game, in that it’s an Ender book, doesn’t stay on Earth with Bean and Peter like other later books, and is the book that Card wrote right after Ender’s Game. It’s also one of those books I skipped for the longest time. I read the first book in high school 25 years ago and have read all the Ender’s Shadow books at least once. I think when I read the premise of this book I […]

Reports had indicated that a good part of the river was navigable up to the foot of the cordillera.

The Snow of the Admiral by Alvaro Mutis

Ilona Comes with the Rain by Alvaro Mutis

December 11, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

So this is the collected novellas about Maqroll the Lookout (a riverboat worker in Colombia) by the writer Alvaro Mutis. I got this either from a Little Free Library or paid a quarter at the public library, I don’t recall which, but it seems fortuitous, as the first novella was really interesting. The Snow of the Admiral This first novella, and I think the one that starts off the whole linked series involves Maqroll, a riverboat lookout, journaling his thoughts on a particular trip […]

Although American political life has rarely touched on by the most acute varieties of class conflict, it has served again and again as an arena for uncommonly angry minds.

The Paranoid Style in American Politics by Richard Hofstadter

December 7, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is a collection of essays from 1963 by the historian Richard Hofstadter, probably most well know for either this book or for his other well-regarded book Anti-Intellectualism in American History which you can guess what it’s about. This book begins with two essays that lay out a reading of a form of political discourse, especially related to the rise of far right extremism. This is a not a book on paranoia, as he lays out pretty directly, but of a kind of affected paranoiac speech […]

Two years into his sixties, Duane Moore–a man who had driven pickups for as long as long as he had been licensed to drive–parked his pickup in his own carport one day and began to walk wherever he went.

Duane's Depressed by Larry McMurtry

When the Light Goes by Larry McMurtry

December 7, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Duane’s Depressed – 4/5 Stars This is the third book in the “Last Picture Show” books. While the first novel would work as a perfectly complete novel, and was for 20 years, the second novel, Texasville came out and was surprisingly good. Following up on Duane Moore as a man, married for 20+ years and in his late 40s with kids and grandkids, and seeing about whether the ambivalence he felt at the ambivalence his Texas town felt allowed some decent exploration into the ravages of […]

Loreen on “I made promises to you that I’m not sure I can keep.”Just so you know, there are now 18 books banned in Utah. Here’s the list compiled by the Salt Lake...
Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...

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