Lorrie Moore – Cannonball Read 17

A battleship… Uh oh, sharks.

Gyo by Junji Ito

Uzumaki by Junji Ito

The Test by Sylvain Neuvel

The Hero by Lee Child

Classic Krakauer by Jon Krakauer

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

March 17, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Like a lot of you, I filled up on library books for the closures and hunkering down. My library announced that not only are they closing, that fines are waived, and nothing is due until the end of March, that also their dropboxes are closed. Who knows what that means, but for me it likely means I will read all the books I got, instead of sorting through and figuring it out one by one. Anyway, here’s my first chunk of reviews from all of […]

“Fathers and sons…they’re like governments: always having sword fights with their penises”

Anagrams by Lorrie Moore

Like Life by Lorrie Moore

April 21, 2019 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

OK ok ok. So I originally used to truly love Lorrie Moore stories, especially from the two collections Self-Help and Birds of America. I read Birds of America in college and read Self-Help a few summers ago from a ratty old copy I found in a free bookstore. But recently I have read first her collected nonfiction, which ranged from perfectly good, to unnecessary, to kind of meh, to outwardly bad. I also read her most recent collection Bark and found it more or less […]

ABSOLUTELY NO WARNING SIGNS. SHE IS IRRATIONAL.

December 26, 2018 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Welcome Home – 4/5 Stars If you haven’t yet, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Lucia Berlin’s collected/selected stories “A Manual for Cleaning Ladies” that came out in 2015. This collection of stories is so good and does a thing that I am always amazed by, transcends the recommendations of readers I don’t trust. It was a hot thing for a little while and this is often a dangerous proposition for readers because I don’t really believe a lot of certain […]

Bark bark bark bark bark

March 12, 2017 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Lorrie Moore is an elder stateswoman of contemporary literature. Her two story collections Self-Help and Birds of America are two of my favorite story collections ever. She is in the age of Vintage Contemporaries with the zany covers where everybody had a recent MFA and it was the 80s and we were reading about divorce and affairs. And Huzzah! This is not the same thing. In fact, this is a pretty weak collection all around. I couldn’t find a single story I could get behind in this […]

Forgiveness Lives Alone and Far Off Down the Road

February 3, 2017 by blackboardmonitor Leave a Comment

Don’t read Lorrie Moore. Everybody should read Lorrie Moore immediately. Lorrie Moore is not recommended, lest you dissolve into a pile of tears and whiskey because she says everything you feel and think deep down and not so deep down. Lorrie Moore is essential, because she says everything you feel and think deep down and not so deep down. I had already been a Lorrie Moore fan. Her writing is beautiful, her female characters complex and flawed and real. Her jokes are sharp, her heartbreaks palpable. […]

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?

November 10, 2014 by Fiat.Luxury Leave a Comment

Benoîte-Marie (Berie) is our narrator. We start with her in Paris, where she’s traveling with her husband, who is lecturing on Tay-Sachs disease. Berie is vaguely dissatisfied, filled with ennui about her marriage. She muses about her teenage-hood in Horsehearts, upstate NY, and her deep friendship with Silsby Chaussée. It’s a story told in wonderfully crafted, evocative prose, that captures not so much a story arc, but rather the feeling of being almost grown up, wandering, being consumed by a friendship, finding an identity while losing your innocence, feeling lost […]

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.

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