Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Stiff Upper Lip and a Blind Eye

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

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Oh, Mr. Stevens. A tragic hero if ever there was one. As a butler to a great house of Britain, he kept his eyes to the floor while the ravages of post-WWI Europe came to a boiling point in the halls of his dear Darlington Hall. Kazuo Ishiguro is a master of quiet suffering. His characters come to slow, stark, and utterly devastating conclusions just a moment before the enormity of their despair hits the reader. The Remains of the Day is arguably  his most celebrated […]

Short story review dump (Part I)

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Barn Burning by Haruki Murakami

Mastiff by Joyce Carol Oates

A Village After Dark by Kazuo Ishiguro

King of the Elves by Philip K Dick

The Second Bakery Attack by Haruki Murakami

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So I was nerding out a couple weeks ago, and started another database. This time, I wanted to compile a list of all the stories written by as many well-regarded authors as I could think of. It started off with just novels, but quickly grew to include short stories. Which means the database got out of control pretty quickly. I knew that many (most?) authors publish a lot of short stories – but when you actually see them all lined up….. It made me realize […]

Carpe Diem

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

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After being comfortably single for quite some time, I got myself a gentleman friend. Fortunately, he’s a reader as well, and he was shocked when he found out that I had not read Never Let Me Go (2005) by Kazuo Ishiguro. He immediately loaned me his copy, and I was thrilled to have another book to read. Fortunately, I really enjoyed this book. Perhaps it didn’t affect me as strongly as it did him, but I really liked the writing, and it made me think. When […]

Bucolic listening

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

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Because I’ve been consumed with one of those jobs that requires 12 hours- a-day attention, I haven’t been reading much, but I do get to have some time with my precious audio books, and so I turned my attention to something more literary for my last listen, knowing I wouldn’t be getting do that with a physical book. Some spoilers follow! The narrator of Never Let Me Go has a comforting, almost bucolic way of telling the story. Can a person speak in a bucolic […]

Questing, for old folks

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Grammar is very important. Without that comma, my title is about looking for senior citizens. With it, those selfsame senior can go on an adventure. And what a wonderful adventure! Unfortunately for all of us, I have forgotten the names of the characters involved but that’s okay. Looking back on my old reviews, I rarely really include character names anyway! This book is set in roughly Arthurian England, there’s even mention of one of his knights. The Buried Giant is also stylistically similar to so much […]

I suppose maybe the Nobel Committee knows what they’re doing

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I didn’t expect to appreciate this one as much as I did. I started The Remains of the Day as an audiobook a few months ago while unpacking at a new apartment, and I realized it would require a bit more attention than I was able to give it then. It seemed fine, maybe a little wandering… but when I picked it back up again this year, I zoomed right through it. The quick summary: Stevens, a butler at a great house in England, goes on […]



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