Laura van den Berg – Cannonball Read 17

Paco’s Story; Freud; I Hold a Wolf by the Ears

Paco's Story by Larry Heineman

Freud by Stefan Zweig

I Hold a Wolf by the Ears by Laura van den Berg

January 31, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Paco’s Story This short novel was published in 1987 and won the National Book Award. Larry Heineman tells us in this 2002 introduction to the book is that he wanted to tell a story that is as much about story telling as the story itself. This happens a lot in war novels, and especially in Vietnam novels and books like Tim O’Brien’s If I Die in a Combat Zone Box Me Up and Ship me Home and The Things they Carried. I think part of […]

Zombies and the Final Girl and … Cuba?

November 27, 2018 by lowercasesee 1 Comment

I flagged this book as “mystery” though it really pulls quite heavily from horror in ways that I don’t have enough appreciation of the genre to fully recognize or explain. The Third Hotel also reminded me a bit of Tangerine, largely in its unsatisfying plot and refusal to use quotation marks when writing dialogue, which I find to be incredibly infuriating. Overall, this was a book I read to finish, not to enjoy. So now to figure out how to draw 250 words out of that. Our […]

Whoever heard of a neurotic frog? Where do humans get off thinking they’re the pinnacle of evolution?

September 18, 2018 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Rubyfruit Jungle – 4/5 Stars So I didn’t know much going into this novel except that it’s seen as an early and fairly beloved novel about growing up gay as a woman. So in MY mind, that meant some stolen glimpses at girls, some little caresses, and other subtle moments that read pretty clearly through a contemporary gaze. Turns out this book was published in 1970 or so and is SUPER GAY. What is super gay? Well, I guess I don’t know how to answer […]

Lost in Thought

April 11, 2015 by ElCicco Leave a Comment

Before reading this novel, I saw two very different reviews of it. One, in Salon, favorably compared Find Me to Station Eleven and The Handmaid’s Tale. The other, from NPR, found it to be lacking and unworthy of such comparison. My opinion is that while the first half of the story does make it seem as if the novel has the potential to rank up there with esteemed dystopian fiction, the second half disappoints. Laura van den Berg is a seasoned and well regarded writer of […]

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