vel veeter – Page 91 – Cannonball Read 17

November Odds and Ends

The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake

The Dark Tower by CS Lewis

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Invention of Sound by Chuck Palahniuk

The Feathers of Death by Simon Raven

The Drowned Cities by Paulo Bacigalupi

Robot Dreams by Isaac Asimov

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

November 15, 2021 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

The Hot Rock – 3/5 Stars A farcical kind of heist book. John Dortmunder is getting out of prision and his old pal immediately brings him a caper to work on. Together with three other specialists, the friends will be stealing an emerald from a museum that has cultural and sentimental value for two warring African nations. One of the nations currently possesses the emerald, while the other is hiring the thieves. Paid a salary, plus the promise of a large reward, Dortmunder begins to […]

The Great War and Modern Memory – Paul Fussell (1975)

The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell

November 15, 2021 by vel veeter 1 Comment

This book looks into the question of the ways in which writers of the first world war wrote about the experiences of wartime, what they brought with them, and how they shaped writing afterward. Specifically, Paul Fussell is trying to bring a sense of British literature (well, British writing) to an American audience. Fussell is a literary scholar and an American combat veteran of World War II. If you’ve read his essays collection “Thank God for the Atom Bomb” you already know how he privileges […]

Slaves in the Family – Edward Ball (1998)

Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball

November 9, 2021 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

If you go to Charleston these days, and especially if you’re there in the evening, along King St, and “out on the town,” it’s kind of easy to ask yourself: where are all the Black people? Charleston looks and feels like a super clean version of Pleasure Island, and while you’re out it’s easy to feel like things are a little off. Maybe it’s a product of living in a city with a much larger Black population or something along those lines, but there’s something […]

Jon Ronson Stuff

The Men Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson

So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

The Butterfly Effect by Jon Ronson

Frank by Jon Ronson

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

Lost at Sea by Jon Ronson

November 5, 2021 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

The Men Who Stare At Goats – 3/5 Stars I wished I liked this better, and I didn’t dislike it, but it felt more cobbled together and scattershot than I would have hoped for. That’s more or less true of a lot of the Jon Ronson books, where he takes a central thesis and explores different connected ideas, stories, parts, etc to try to tell a more fuller version of things. But because this book begins with a set of events and government program, the […]

The Irony of American History by Reinhold Neibuhr (1952)

Irony of American History by Reinhold Niebuhr

November 5, 2021 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is a re-released series of lectures by Reinhold Neibuhr, and I think the re-release edition provides some context for what kind of reader and what kind of moment this was intended to meet. It came out in 2008 or so and was introduced by Andrew Bacevich. In my mind, this places it right in the context of a rise in certain forms of online journalistic pushback to Bush and the Bush Doctrine. The book itself is also remarkable because of the self-critical take on […]

Nixonland – Rick Perlstein (2008)

Nixonland by Rick Perlstein

November 3, 2021 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This follow up (or distinct from book) to Rick Perlstein’s previous contemporary history The Coming Storm, takes on the Richard Nixon’s role in the creation of the modern GOP, and as Perlstein frames it in this series, the “end of American consensus.” His argument throughout these first two books is that the conservative wing of the Republican party worked tirelessly to gain control of the Republican party. If you’ve read The Coming Storm, you know that that book was a mini-biography of Barry Goldwater that […]

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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