Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About vel veeter

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vel veeter's Reviews:

The Citadel of Troizen, where the Palace stands. was built by giants before anyone remembers.

The King Must Die by Mary Renault

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This is a reread from a book I read in college for a Mythology class. Going in, I was thinking about skipping it and moving right to the sequel, which I will read before too long, but I decided to revisit this one and I am really glad I did. I didn’t misremember anything from this one, but I basically excised 40% of the book in my memory. What we have here is a mid-century British psychological-realist revisioning of the Theseus (and the Minotaur) myth, […]

Deep one night he was trimming his nose that would never walk again into sunlight atop living legs…

The Day He Himself Shall Wipe away my Tears by Kenzaburo Oe

Prize Stock by Kenzaburo Oe

Teach Us to Outgrow our Madness by Kenzaburo Oe

Aghwee the Sky Monster by Kenzaburo Oe

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Kenzaburo Oe won the Nobel Prize in 1994 (the year after Toni Morrison) and he’s the among the oldest living laureate (I think Alice Munro is the only one older) and won the longest ago, except for Wole Soyinka, who won a decade before. He’s the last Japanese language winner and only the second ever (after Kawabata). His work is deeply human and humane, personal, and very strong, or least the ones I’ve read are. He’s positioned pretty clearly as a post-WII writer, and like […]

In the spring, in the suburbs of New Orleans–Metairie, Jefferson, Lafayette–hang wreaths on their front doors.

Lost Souls by Poppy Z Brite

Moonstone by Sjon

Nothing But the Truth by Avi

Slouching Toward Kalamazoo by Peter De Vries

A Time to Kill by John Grisham

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Lost Souls – 4/5 Stars I dunno if you’re into Southern, druggy, Queer, crusty, Goth vampire novels from the early 1990s, but is definitely one. Maybe you thought Lost Boys was too clean, so this one would be for you. We begin with a small bartender in New Orleans serving a drink to a teenage girl when three vampires (and vampires is a fluid term in this book with some specific definitions herein) roll in. The lead vampire–beautifully, alluring, dangerous–has sex with and impregnates the […]

I dreamed a fellow asked me if I wanted a dog and I said yeah, I’d like to have a dog…

If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes

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Chester Himes is primarily known for his crime novels and I bet if you’ve never heard of him, you have heard of A Rage in Harlem and Cotton Comes to Harlem, but he also wrote Blind Man with a Pistol, and The Real Cool Killers. I am not a huge fan of that crime fiction, but I do think this book is good. I decided to finally read this one after it was referenced in the collected Ralph Ellison letters. Ellison thinks this novel is quite strong, but is disappointed […]

“There must have been some kind of mistake,” I said.

The End and Other Beginnings by Veronica Roth

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In terms of the books she’ll write in her career, Veronica Roth couldn’t have done herself a bigger favor than writing the Divergent series first. I will go on record to say they are truly and utterly terrible. Not only do they tap into that post Hunger Games market in ways that I do believe Roth wrote earnestly (as opposed to a cynical cash grab that I DO blame her publishing company for putting), so they made a ton of money, but it also sets […]

A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

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CBR12Bingo – White Whale This might be the whalest of my white whale books. Heck, even as far as White Whales go, I have read Moby Dick a handful of times, and while it’s scattered, it’s completely readable to me. So this one though is all over the place. So while I have read this now, there’s a near infinite number of bits scattered all over my brain. To think of it as a complete text feels wrong, in the sense of reading it as […]



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