Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

A Quiet Book About Surviving Alone

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer

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On the surface, this translated, dystopian work from 1963 doesn’t seem like it should be as engaging as it is. It’s slow-paced, introspective, and all about a woman milking a cow, scything hay, chopping wood, describing the weather, and spending time with animals. Nothing really happens. But I was so interested. The book does start with a big event, though. Our nameless narrator wakes up to find that her traveling companions who had gone out the previous night had never returned. When she heads to […]

The depths of human nature

Terrible Faithfulness by Marlen Haushofer

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Marlen Haushofer is one of my absolute favourite authors and you cannot imagine how much it pains me that this never was translated into English. Her most famous novel, The Wall, did get translated, it got a so-so movie adaptation too, but her true strength lies in novellas and short stories. And you’re all missing out on this brilliant collection of short stories! She’s a true master of the field. I’m tagging this “horror” as well, even though they’re technically not horror stories. They’re stories […]

The Last Woman on Earth

The Wall by Marlen Haushofer

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One morning an ordinary middle-aged woman wakes up in a hunting lodge in the mountains and finds an unsurmountable but transparent wall separating her from the rest of the world. Every living being on the other side of the wall has apparently died and the woman seems to be the last surviving human. Hence begins her struggle to continue on her own, with only a cat, a cow, and a dog for company and support. It is never explained why the wall appeared and what […]



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