Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Zirza

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I am an English teacher from the Low Countries. Like everyone else I aspire to one day write a Booker Prize Winner, but until then I contend my self with reading stuff and writing about it. I try to keep the bitchiness to a minimum, but sometimes I can't help myself. In my spare time I enjoy complaining about the weather and sleeping. I lack the attention span for good books and the tolerance for bad ones. I am stuck in literary purgatory. Hey, at least it's warm here.

Zirza's Reviews:

We care too much, or not enough

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood

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It feels weird putting these two in the same review, but there you have it. I’ve been struck by the dreaded reading slump.  The Plot (Jean Hanff Korelitz) ** The plot of The Plot: author Jacob is struggling. His first novel made a modest impact, but didn’t sell well despite positive reviews. His second novel went ignored entirely. To make ends meet, Jacob teaches writing to a group of wannabes and one of them tells him the plot of a novel he is planning to […]

A love letter to the NHS

This is going to hurt by Adam Kay

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The NHS being a demanding mistress, that is.  Adam Kay is a screenwriter for various UK TV shows, but before he switched careers he was a doctor specialising in gynaecology and obstetrics. During his studies, he was advised to keep a diary. Years after switching careers, he received a letter from the Medical Board of Whatever stating that they’d struck him from the professional register as he hadn’t practised medicine in years. It led him to revisit his diaries, now presented here in book form.  […]

Pay no attention to the elephant behind the curtain

Strange Pictures by Uketsu

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A Tokyo student named Shuhei Sasaki, interested in all things paranormal and otherwise spooky, disovers a mysterious blog, last updated a decade ago. In it, a man who calls himself Raku, describes the pregnancy his wife, Yuki. A second story is about a young boy who goes missing; a third one about an arts teacher who is slain whilst camping out on a mountain. How are they linked? The reader is invited to scrutinise the pictures that the victims drew and to see if they […]

Skarsgård or Curry?

IT by Stephen King

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

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Two Halloween-ish reads this month! I’ve been lagging behind a bit and that’s mostly to do with the fact that I ended up picking two hefty tomes that I didn’t enjoy all that much. First up: Stephen King’s IT.  We all know the story: mysterious killer clown kills children in `the small town of Derry, is chased by a group of people, first as children, then as adults. My dad made me watch the film when I was six. That’s all you need to know […]

Hubris and the British Empire, a Match Made in Heaven

Erebus: The Story of a Ship by Michael Palin

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Erebus tells the story of the eponymous ship, part of the British Imperial navy at the height of its power. Though it was originally meant for combat, it was used for exploration – polar exploration, to be precise. It was first sailed to the south pole by James Clark Ross, with its sister ship HMS Terror, for a very successful exploration: geographical landmarks still bear their names (Mount Terror and Mount Erebus). However, the ships’ glory came to an abrupt halt several years later in […]

Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

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Reviews of The Handmaid’s Tale almost invariably start like a collective trauma memory: where were you when it happened? I was twenty-ish, an English major at a nearby university. I was taught how to analyse literature, but not how to consume it, how to distinguish it, and I don’t think we ever read this one for class. Needless to say, most of my professors were middle-aged men. I did read it, though, and it stuck with me; I read it again a few years later. […]



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