vel veeter – Page 150 – Cannonball Read 17

The mules strained forward strongly, hoofs stomping, harness jingling.

Rifles for Watie by Harold Keith

September 10, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is one of those books that I cannot honestly rate because I’ve read it two dozen times, and first read it in fourth grade. I loved it then, and I love it now, and it’s too close to my reading heart to rate it honestly. So anyway, five stars. I was assigned this book in fourth grade, and it’s the first book that I opened, read two or three sentences and got super intimidated and put aside. A friend of mine told me he […]

The word is everywhere, a plague spread by by presidents of the United States, television anchors, radio talk show hosts, preachers in megachurches, self-help gurus, and anyone else attempting to demonstrate his or her identification with ordinary, presumably wholesome American value.

The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

September 8, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Age of American Unreason – 4/5 Stars This is the 2008 historical analysis of our exhausting times by the journalist and historian Susan Jacoby. I’ve read a previous work of hers, and my review of this one more or less matches this one. Jacoby’s collection of history and historical facts is mostly strong and effective, her analysis more than adequate, but her tendency to both attempt solutions or eradicate causes, as well as her need to cast herself as different or separate from the failures […]

Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable.

Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Real Life by Brandon Taylor

September 7, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Doctor Jekyll and My Hyde – 4/5 Stars This is still a wonderful and silly novel. I am thinking of teaching this novel for twelfth graders in a few weeks, but I am realizing from this reread that while the novel is short, there’s some stylistic flourishes that I think are going to stand in the way of enjoyment and analysis. Even the opening few pages, in just describing a weird scene in the street, the opening chapter has to think about the nature of […]

Lesser catching sight of himself in his lonely glass wakes to finish his book.

The Tenants by Bernard Malamud

Idiots First by Bernard Malamud

Rembrandt's Hat by Bernard Malamud

September 7, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

The Tenants – 3/5 Stars This is a troubling novel that is sometimes brilliant and amazing, and sometimes too awkward and awful for words. We meet Lesser, a 36 year old novelist living in a tenement in the Bronx. His landlord would love to tear down the building, and offers repeatedly to buy Lesser out of his rent-controlled, but Lesser wants to finish his third novel first, something that might take only a few more months or forever. So he’s the last holdout. One day […]

Dean hurries past the Phoenix Theatre, dodges a blind man in dark glass, steps onto Charing Cross Road to overtake a slow-moving woman and pram, leaps a grimy puddle, and swerves onto Denmark Street where he skids on a sheet of black ice.

Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell

September 5, 2020 by vel veeter 1 Comment

The new David Mitchell novel (Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks, Black Swan Green) that came out this summer. The novels begins in the mid 1960s in London as Dean Moss, a talented by hapless bass guitarist, has been kicked out of his apartment and out of his band. As he looks for a place to live, some money, and a gig, he meets Levon, a Canadian music manager, who convinces him to come to a show to see a guitarist. As the evening unfolds it […]

“I’ve watched through his eyes, I’ve listened through his ears, and I tell you he’s the one. Or at least as close as we’re going to get.”

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card

Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card

Shadow of the Hegemon by Orson Scott Card

First Meetings by Orson Scott Card

A War of Gifts by Orson Scott Card

September 5, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

I am rereading all of the Ender books and reading a handful for the first time. I am not really interesting in investigating Card as a person because he’s not a very good person, but in the novels themselves. Sometimes there’s carry over between the things that makes Card undesirable, but much of the time, the novels are wholly separate. Ender’s Game – 5/5 Stars I first read this book in high school, and I had no clue what it was all about going […]

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...

About vel veeter