vel veeter – Page 89 – Cannonball Read 17

The Fixer – Bernard Malamud (1966)

The Fixer by Bernard Malamud

December 13, 2021 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is simply one of the most frightening books I’ve ever read. Like a lot of books, this book is a reminder that the whole world’s been a dystopia depending on who you are. Yakov Bok is a handyman in Kiev. He’s been not exactly passing as gentile to work in a specific neighborhood so much as allowing his unquestioned Jewishness to remain unquestioned. One day is picked up by the police and accused of murdering a local boy and draining his body of all […]

The Gay Place – Billy Lee Brammer (1961)

The Flea Circus by Billy Lee Brammer

Room Enough to Caper by Billy Lee Brammer

Country Pleasures by Billy Lee Brammer

December 9, 2021 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is a collection of three novellas first published in 1961 by a former aide to Lyndon Baines Johnson long before he was president. He was never the governor of Texas, but a senator and house representative before he was vice-president. This book to me feels like an inverse to All the King’s Men, where a political figure (framed off of Huey Long) is a center to riff on Souther identity and history more than the politics of the day. Here, I think there’s a lot […]

Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller (1934)

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

December 9, 2021 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

(Photo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Cancer_(novel)) I guess it’s fair to ask the question is this book mysoginistic, about mysogny, about a mysognistic character or some combination of all three. I think it’s got to be all three in varying degrees. I can imagine for a lot of people, reading this novel felt fairly ilberating when it came out and then when it finally came out. And while, sure there’s plenty of graphic sexual content, what stands out to me more than anything in reading it now, especially at […]

Imaginary Homelands – Salman Rushdie (1991)

IMaginary Homelands by Salman Rushdie

December 7, 2021 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Of the handful of nonfiction works I’ve read by Rushdie, this one feels like the most important and essential one. There’s some significant strengths in this one, so very necessary commentary, and nuanced understandings that either exist less in his later writing, or possibly exist less in his later thinking. If we’re thinking less of Rushdie as a public individual with a variety of views and a changing orientation toward the world and more of a writer who is presenting his views on these particular […]

Dragons of the Hourglass Mage – Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (2009)

Dragons of the Hourglass Mage by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

December 7, 2021 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

The final of the “Lost Chronicles” book and like the previous one that mostly focuses on Kitiara, this story picks up Raistlin’s lost adventures during the last book. In the final book of the Chronicles, Raistlin removes himself from drowingin the maelstrom, seemingly dooming his brother and companions to their death. It’s clear from both this book and that book that this was the most he could do, save himself, and well, I’d also argue that if they wanted to be saved, they maybe should […]

A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving (1989)

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

December 6, 2021 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

One of the first adult books I read when I was younger. I don’t mean adult in terms of audience exactly, but adult in terms of you more or less need to be an adult to appreciate a lot of what this contains. In part, this is a book about the Baby Boomer generation told from within, and that the memories and experiences tied to that generation fuel a lot of the book. It’s also helpful to have some world experience and world weariness. So […]

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...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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