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BOOM and BUST in Dublin

The Commitments by Roddy Doyle

February 27, 2021 by jormis Leave a Comment

Like many others I was totally taken by the sheer force of a movie that was The Commitments back in 1991. Maybe it was the story about a band – soul music never sounded so good on a silver screen. Or perhaps due to living in Edinburgh at the time: I was practically almost next door to Dublin where The Commitments was happening. At least, it felt like it, coming from the early 1990s Finland, after the Cold War, after the collapse of Soviet Union, Finland […]

Niccolò Macchiavelli Gump

Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson

February 26, 2021 by jormis Leave a Comment

I saw recently Coup de Torchon, a French film starring Isabelle Huppert (had a minimarathon of her films), set in the West Africa in 1938. I got excited and had to go to the source. Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson is set to early 20th century America. Pottsville is in Potts County, “47th largest county in the state” (out of 47). It is a backward place within a backward place, by a river and its sheriff is an unreliable narrator named Nick Corey. His simplistic, […]

A lot of snow out of one cloud, and it grows thicker.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin

February 2, 2021 by jormis 3 Comments

Some of book reviews in CBR have been a trip to the memory lane. This is no exception. When I think of Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, I’m transported back to next library of my life, the central library of my childhood town. No more small branch library, welcome the main library. I was in the big league now. Well, relatively speaking: even in a library and education friendly Finland a small town’s main library in the mid-1980s is still heavily constrained […]

Move over, Bridget Jones: I’ve seen the future of romantic fulfillment and it’s a smuthaton

40-Love by Olivia Dade

Teach Me by Olivia Dade

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade

November 2, 2020 by jormis 2 Comments

It was 1 am last Thursday and I had just read on page 78 April’s confession to Marcus on their (tweet) date that she writes fanfic and that her handle is UnapologeticLaviniaStan and OMG! Marcus makes the connection and suddenly I remembered that I will be chairing a meeting in the morning. My first thought was ‘Maybe I don’t need to sleep?’ I want to thank CBR12 for making me embark on an Olive Dade marathon (Dadeathon), three books in four days: Spoiler Alert, Teach […]

Celtic Chiaroscuro

The Grey King by Susan Cooper

Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper

November 2, 2020 by jormis Leave a Comment

(The previous review for Books I-III in the Dark is Rising series is here: https://cannonballread.com/2020/05/over-sea-under-the-stone-and-the-dark-is-rising-and-greenwitch-jormis/) The last two books in the Dark is Rising series are situated in Wales. In the whole series, 3 books happen in Wales and 2 in Cornwall. So, all are historical Celtic parts (before Saxons and Jutes and Normans came and conquered). In The Grey King, we meet Will Stanton who is recuperating from a liver infection. His parent send him off to Wales and its fresh sea air to […]

ingres77 on The Wheel of Time (Part I)I remember when it came out, and I think my sister liked it. My fear would be that it came out at a time when...
wicherwill on Whales… in… space!The next book drops some of the plotlines (because, yes, there are too many) and then promptly picks up another handful to replace all of...
narfna on The Wheel of Time (Part I)Anjelica Huston is in it! And Julianna Margulies. And Michael Vartan (this is the reason I watched it).
narfna on The Wheel of Time (Part I)I mean, I never read the book because by the time I got around to it she was a pedophile and abuser. But I remember...
ingres77 on The Wheel of Time (Part I)LOL Fair enough.

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