John Gardner – Cannonball Read 17

J.D. Salinger et al

On Moral Fiction by John Gardner

May 15, 2023 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

On Moral Fiction “A book as wide-ranging as this one needs a governing metaphor to give it at least an illusion that all is well.” Like most polemics, there’s some righteousness that John Gardner is working with here on an issue I think that was relevant for the literary moment and for our current literary moment. One of the things that’s kind of funny here is that John Gardner is decidedly less remembered than many of the people he’s criticizing in this piece. So for […]

More Books, More reviews

The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall

Robot Visions by Isaac Asimov

The Between by Tananarive Due

Mad about Shakespeare by Jonathan Bate

Startide Rising by David Brin

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

The Woman Who Killed the Fish by Clarice Lispector

Real Hero Shit by Kendra Wells

We had to Remove this Post by Hanna Bervoets

The King's Indian by John Gardner

November 21, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

The Machine Gunners – 4/5 I picked up this book because it was on the Guardian’s top 1000 novels list and since I had never heard of it, it sounded interesting. It IS interesting, and it’s more interesting that the title might otherwise suggest to you. There’s some irony in the title because the would-be “machine gunners” are a group of raggedy London kids during the blitz. This group is mad as hell that the blitz has otherwise disrupted their childhood, and the novel does […]

Shorts

Cape Fear by John D Macdonald

In the Suicide Mountains by John Gardner

More Better Deals by Joe R Lansdale

November 9, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Cape Fear – Oddly I first read this novel in like 7th grade and clearly don’t remember much from it. I also watched both movie versions about the same time and so my sense of what happens in the story is as much affected by those as this. This novel is much more straight forward in some ways and weird and digressive in others. The plot here is that Sam Bowden is a married man with two kids. He’s a successful lawyer, and is a […]

The old ram stands looking down over rockslides, stupid triumphant.

Grendel by John Gardner

May 14, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

An incredibly dry and hilarious, and deeply thoughtful, retelling of “Beowulf” from the perspective of Grendel. This is NOT like those books like “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs”, but instead is more like Wide Sargasso Sea or other retellings of colonial stories. And in a lot of ways, this book is like a post-colonial retelling of Beowulf. Grendel is a being, an incredibly intelligent, powerful being in the world when he comes across men (otherwise he knows the dumb animals, his chaotic and […]

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.

Help Our Mission