Cannonball Read 11

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vel veeter

I want to read more older things and British things this year, and some that are both. Oh and I’ll probably end up reading a bunch of Italian and French writers this year too. I think.

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vel veeter's Reviews:

It’s strange how the most dyed-in-the-wool tyrants still vaguely respect due process.

Order of the Day by Eric Vuillard

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A truly terrifying short little novel. Told through a series of vignettes involving some transcript, authorial interpolation, and an element of fictive fabrication, this novel is about the build to and eventual annexation of Austria in 1938. To understand the smallness of the scope of this novel, I think it’s about focusing in sharp detail on the event itself, a bloodless (kind of) coup against Austria, and one that had overwhelming support of many Austrians, less the Austrians denied the right to vote, murdered, excluded, persecuted or coerced otherwise. It’s also one, the novel argues, built on a bluff. Blitzkrieg […]

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11/8/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:623 |

His companion on his walk was a deep sense of persecution.

Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin

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I actually had never head of this book before, but I know that my wife and my mother in law (and my sister in law) have read and love Laurie Colwin’s book Home Cooking. I found this at the library sale and their connection, plus its role in one of the Joe Hill stories from his new collection Full Throttle made it an obvious buy. It’s a charming book about two couples starting off their life together. We begin meeting Vinny and Guido, two third cousins who don’t actually have a lot of Italian ancestry living their pretty regular bohemian mid-20s […]

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Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

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11/8/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:622 |

Why on earth don’t I take her calls?

You Can Thank Me Later by Kelly Harms

Climbing With Molly by William Finnegan

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Both of these are Audible Originals for the month of November, which tend to be novellas, short radio plays, or would-be podcasts, etc. This month I chose a Holiday novella by a writer I don’t know, but is a novelist, so I was curious what that would bring, and then a biographical piece by William Finnegan, the author of the memoir Barbarian Days, about growing up in surf culture, as well as being a respected journalist.   You Can Thank Me Later – Kelly Harms This is a novella narrated by a chef in her mid 30s planning a Thanksgiving dinner […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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11/8/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:621 |

Worst seat ever.

Southern Lady Code by Helen Ellis

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This is a pretty weak sauce essay collection that touches on earnest insight, but always pulls back to a central, and boring conceit. It’s hard to tell who the audience is for this book. Helen Ellis, author of the short collection American Housewife, repeatedly discusses her identity of Southern Lady, though this belies her status as rich white woman in New York, even if she does admit to it. Southern Ladiness is laden with off-hand charm of course. Imagine a whole book whose central thesis is “Bless their heart” and then seeded through numerous different stories illustrating this. So who is […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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11/8/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:619 |

If it was not madness, then there was only one other thing it could be.

The Time of the Angels by Iris Murdoch

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Like a lot of Iris Murdoch novels we have a cast of characters circulating both a place (this time a rectory) and a figure of some power, presence, or influence over that place: here, the rector Carel. Carel is aging, possibly falling prey to mental illness, which either explains or seeks to excuse his moral and religious failings. Religous failings: he’s becomes increasingly convinced/aware that there is no god. Normally, you might guess that this would make it difficult to be a rector, but he feels a kind of conviction to his calling and decides that if he’s convinced of […]

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Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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11/8/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:618 |

It is one of the defects of my character that I cannot altogether dislike anyone who makes me laugh

The Moon and Sixpence by W Somerset Maugham

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This is the 1919 novel by W Somerset Maugham that is partially modeled on the life of Paul Gaughin, a figure I don’t know much about personally before this novel, but looked him up for this. In the novel, Charles Strickland is a near 40 year old business guy who leaves his wife and teen children after seventeen years of marriage to move to Paris and become an artist. After several years of working at it he moves to Tahiti and starts a new life there, became sick and died. All much like the real life Paul Gaughin. The difference […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "It is one of the defects of my character that I cannot altogether dislike anyone who makes me laugh"

11/7/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:617 |

People always think their art is the end of art.

Acastos - Two Platonic Dialogues by Iris Murdoch

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This book contains two dialogues written as if to be performed, but I listened to the audiobook read by a single narrator and it was fine. Iris Murdorch, along with being an accomplished novelist is also a trained philosopher with a PhD and so course understands the nature of philosophy and philosophical discussion, elements that show up in many of her novels, and especially that of the relationship between master and mentee/student and teacher. These dialogues, one about the nature and role of art in society, and one about the nature and role of religion in society are both interesting […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "People always think their art is the end of art."

11/6/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:616 |

All this was in the days when the world was wide, and the island of Tasmania was still the world.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

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This is the 2014 Booker Prize winner, and one of the first books I paid attention to through the process of the award. Most years I’ve either missed it or looked back on it. It has seemed through that process and through my reading to be a very suitable winner both for that year and in general. It’s a good novel, and it’s a really powerful reading experience in a lot of ways. It is not inspiring, uplifting, invigorating, or any of the other kinds of positive attributes we saddle onto fiction about suffering and trauma. And in a lot […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "All this was in the days when the world was wide, and the island of Tasmania was still the world."

11/6/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:615 |


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