Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

One of My Quickest and One of My Longest Reads This Year

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

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Several People Are Typing I had such a good time with this one! It’s told exclusively through Slack chat messages, which makes it a really fast read, and it is so funny. There is an ensemble cast, but Gerald is more or less the main character. He inexplicably finds his consciousness uploaded into Slack, and none of his co-workers at a PR firm believe him (understandably!) and assume he is just working from home and doing a comic bit. The main plot of the novel […]

Definitely a… Creative approach, and a good one too

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

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This book is set in a modern day workplace, specifically a PR company. The main character, Gerald, is an everyday office worker at the company, not too significant. One day, he is sucked into Slack. He has to learn to navigate his new world with no external stimulus. His productivity is through the roof, so no one argues with it. As he begins to panic and search for help, there seems to be more afoot in this company than just the PR disaster caused by […]

haunted house of late stage capitalism is correct

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

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Perhaps this isn’t a genuine five star book but I enjoyed myself so much while reading it that I’ve decided to throw a bit of caution to the wind and award it said coveted rating. Maybe I’ll revisit later on and have second thoughts, but as another reviewer noted this book is compulsively readable. Do you work in an office? Do you use Slack, or some other “more accessible” type of messaging platform meant to serve as a de-escalation from email which nonetheless has turned […]

“look, I know you don’t believe me when I say I’m imprisoned in our slack workplace”

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

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CBR14Bingo: Rec’d (I recommend this one! Fast and excellent skewering of Slack/work culture in 2022) This is one of those books that hit me at the exact right time. As someone who is constantly on Slack for work, I am still thinking about perfectly it skewered the grim experience of corporate tech chat messaging. Throughout the day today I was struck by how well he satirized various interactions. Several People are Typing gets everything about the tone and the purgatorial aspect of this platform while […]



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