Thomas Pynchon – Cannonball Read 17

Hippy Shenanigans Colorful Characters Dope and Crime

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

May 13, 2025 by esmemoria 5 Comments

Although it’s been many years since I read it, Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 is one of my favorite books of all time. I’ve read a few other books of his and generally enjoy the psychedelic, conspiratorial, convoluted style. Inherent Vice is absolutely in this vein, but by the end I was thoroughly bored and wondering what the meandering point was supposed to be. The story follows Larry “Doc” Sportello, a pothead hippy private investigator who seems to get hired by everyone in […]

April 2024 Leftovers

X = : Poems by Stephen Berg

Charcoal Joe by Walter Mosley

A Game of Lies by Clare Mackintosh

The Hurricane Blonde by Halley Sutton

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon

L.A. Requiem by Robert Crais

Watch It Burn by Kristen Bird

Sleep With Strangers by Dolores Hitchens

The Fixer: Moguls, Mobsters, Movie Stars, and Marilyn by Josh Young

One of Us Is Wrong by Sam Holt

The Fade Out by Ed Brubaker

The Second Murderer by Denise Mina

Blackmailer by George Axelrod

The Darkest Glare: A Story of Murder, Blackmail, and Real Estate Greed in 1979 Los Angeles by Chip Jacobs

Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith

May 6, 2024 by Jake Leave a Comment

Happy April, y’all! X = : Poems**** This is why library book bingos are necessary. I only checked this one out because I needed to read a book of poems and I wanted to check the nettlesome “X” off the A-Z reading list. A convoluted reason to begin with and this wasn’t even the book I thought I was getting! I thought I’d get a different X by a different author. I’m glad I got this one. Some of these really spoke to me, including […]

“Is this book written in an alternative version of English? I have no idea what is happening”

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

December 13, 2022 by Wanderlustful 1 Comment

Proving I learned very little from the Intellectual Property law textbook in my previous review, I stole the title of this review from one of the top questions about this book in GoodReads. To your question I saw: I am with you, sir. The other title I considered was “Am I a bad literature major?” Maybe I’ll leave that as a theoretical question, I feel like Pynchon would appreciate that. This is a slender little volume that I think is commenting on conspiracy theories and […]

Against the Day

Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon

May 13, 2022 by vel veeter 1 Comment

Gravity’s Rainbow is a truly difficult book to read, mostly because of the complex language that often clips itself off at various times, paragraphs that go on and on, and a self-referential style that is both dense and ambiguous. To say that this book is significantly easier to read is a way of saying that the language is much more fluent, recognizable, and less dense. That’s not to say that this book is in fact easy to read because while the language is more accessible, […]

Ladies and Gentlemen, the (reading) Weekend…

Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon

Times Square Red, Times Square Blue by Samuel R. Delany

Queer: A Graphic History by Meg John-Barker, Julia Scheele (illustration)

Widespread Panic by James Ellroy

Quarry's Cut by Max Allan Collins

June 20, 2021 by Jake Leave a Comment

Read a variety of books close to and over the weekend. Let’s check it out… Bleeding Edge **** This is a 2021 reread and it’s better than I remember. The ending disappoints but it’s still an entertaining, prescient novel. Pynchon warned us about Too Online culture and yet, here we are. Times Square Red, Times Square Blue **** I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t this. And I liked it! Mostly. This is like a tale of two books. It’s two essays […]

In June of 2016 my wife, Jen, and I took our fourteen-month-old daughter, Oona, to the Nantucket Film Festival.

The New One by Mike Birbiglia

My Vanishing Country by Bakari Sellers

Last Seen Wearing by Colin Dexter

Hey Rube by Hunter S Thompson

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson

Nickle Brickle'Bee by Sterling Nixon

Cold Storage by David Koepp

Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen

The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt

Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

The Mark of Zorro by Johnson McCulley

The Good Nurse by Charles Graeber

The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark

November 28, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

The New One – 3/5 Stars This is the second Mike Birbiglia book I’ve read, after Sleepwalk with Me, and it’s good in the ways that comedians’ books are good and bad in the way that comedians’ books are bad (though this is a general issue with the form more than this specific book). Mike Birbiglia’s career is interesting in part because of the way he clearly got taken up by “Big Storytelling” around 2009 or so, and the opportunities to write movies that came […]

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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