Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Nobody wears this much armor unless it has been hurt by someone who had no reason to hurt him.

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

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This book presents the same interesting challenge that I like in a book: how to deal with an absolutely bad protagonist. I don’t mean uncompelling, but a bad dude. And not actually one super interested in redemption. He kind of is by the end, but only because of the costs he incurs throughout the book. Jude is a semi-retired heavy metal rock star. He’s got a young girlfriend he calls Georgia, from where she’s from. He’s also recently broken up with another similar girlfriend named […]

When the horror of dystopia seems like a moderate improvement on reality

The Store by Bentley Little

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Book synopsis: In a small Arizona town, a man counts his blessings: a loving wife, two teenage daughters, and a job that allows him to work at home. Then “The Store” announces plans to open a local outlet, which will surely finish off the small downtown shops. His concerns grow when “The Store’s” builders ignore all the town’s zoning laws during its construction. Then dead animals are found on “The Store’s” grounds. Inside, customers are hounded by obnoxious sales people, and strange products appear on […]

Death Always in the Castle

Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park, 2nd Edition by Lee H. Whittlesey

We have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

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Two books, very unalike, and yet sharing one general darkness. Death, spoken and unspoken, biogenic and anthropogenic. Non-fiction, and fiction. Come sit and have tea with me, won’t you? The sugar’s right there.

My Best Friend’s Exorcism – A nostalgic and wild ride

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

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What a wild and crazy ride this book was! Equal parts, horror, humor, coming of age, and a nostalgic love letter to the 1980s. Looking back at that sentence it is clear that Hendrix was being a bit ambitious in scope, as this is a lot to balance, but he does so with ease. I don’t remember ever vacillating so quickly and constantly from laughter to terror, but the pendulum swings back and forth again and again over the course of this book. What starts […]

Kind regards, OG

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

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I’ve never seen Phantom of the Opera on stage or as a filmed performance, but I have seen the Lon Cheney film of this novel. And that film, like this novel, is an accidentally hilarious (though very entertaining!) melodrama. But at the same time, it’s drama does not fare too terribly well in 2019 awareness of gender relations, that’s for sure. So here’s what’s pretty funny: The Phantom calls himself in my translation as the “Opera Ghost” and signs all his notes as “OG”. He […]

There were no servants to maintain the house; they were indistinguishable from the guests by then.

Hell House by Richard Matheson

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So like I said the other day with Light Years and how Ender’s Game is just a sub-genre now, the whole “people trying to get to the bottom of a haunted house through a combination of parapsychology, scientific method, and psychical powers” ala The Haunting of Hill House is a sub-genre too. In Shirley Jackson’s novel, which is quite subtle in its narration, themes, and spookiness. There’s a suggestion that our main character’s sense of self and questions about her sexual identity are being explored […]



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