Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

TFW The Trenches of WWI Beat Life at Oxford, Any Day

Good-Bye to All That by Robert Graves

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Bingo Square Shelfie Good-Bye to All That is rather a “Boy’s Own” version of, Robert Graves’ (the Irish-British poet) account of his public school and war years – WWI, that is.  Schooling started at Charterhouse School and continued at Oxford, and Graves did not enjoy any bit of it.  As soon as the War started, Graves signed up, as an officer, and never looked back.  War, it turned out, was far more his element. Graves was one of the several British poets involved in WWI, […]

My special circle included Edna Ferber, one of the most prolific writers of her time–a scold, a snob, a low-profile dominatrix whose corseted asperity was never far from busting out.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? by Lee Israel

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

Good Bye to All That by Robert Graves

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston

Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

Harriet Tubman by Ann Petry

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This post with multiple reviews represents a clearing of the cache of backlogged Audible audiobooks (mostly quite short) that I am trying to work my way through. My audiobook TBR is significantly longer than my paper book TBR, which is almost always less than 10 at a time.   Can Your Ever Forgive Me? – 4/5 Despite the party line from English teachers about plagiarism and fraud and academic honesty, I do love a good con artist. And literary con artists have always had a […]

The broken images of Robert Graves

Selected Poems by Robert Graves

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With 1917 potentially poised for success at the Oscars, it feels like a good moment to look at the work of a WWI poet, namely that of Robert Graves. Now, I didn’t read his Selected Poems (Faber & Faber, edited by Northern Irish poet Michael Longley) because of the film. If anything, it’s the other way around: I saw 1917 because I am teaching Graves’s poetry this semester to an upper-level class of English majors, and I was curious as to how well the film supplemented the poetry of […]

Robert, have done with nursery pap, Write like a man.

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Country Sentiment – 2/5 Stars Here’s the poem that ends this collection: A FIRST REVIEW. Love, Fear and Hate and Childish Toys Are here discreetly blent; Admire, you ladies, read, you boys, My Country Sentiment. But Kate says, “Cut that anger and fear, True love’s the stuff we need! With laughing children and the running deer That makes a book indeed.” Then Tom, a hard and bloody chap, Though much beloved by me, “Robert, have done with nursery pap, Write like a man,” says he. […]



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