Normally, I don’t break my one cardinal rule of reading – never ever ever get something from the Barnes and Noble bargain bin. But my eyes saw the magical words “Edgar Award” and I decided Edgar Award surely could trump the stench of bad bargain books. I was so so wrong. I stopped reading and went into “shut up and take my money” mode right after Edgar Award, so I didn’t notice the few qualifiers that came with Edgar Award – namely, “from the Edgar Award […]
And now my scalp itches…
First: some background. Two years ago, I reviewed American Psycho for Cannonball Read 5, and had the immense fortune of seeing that review published on Pajiba. Yay! In the comments section, someone suggested that I needed to read Blood Meridian, to get some perspective on the physical revulsion that American Psycho had filled me with. This year, I decided to see for myself. No kidding. I decided the best way to review this book would be to share my real-time Goodreads status updates, because that […]
Historical fiction that bites, whimpers, howls, and won’t let go
This is my first Cannonball read and I can’t believe I picked a book–sort of at random, I admit–that I love this much. It’s a story of the Northwest frontier at the turn of the twentieth century so lumberjacks, railroad laborers, miscreants, drunks, and a few coyotes and wolves are par for the course. But there’s also a (maybe real/maybe an apparition) wolf-girl and a sort of carnival side-show version of a wolf-boy. In a book that’s just 125 pages long. I’ve never read anything by Denis Johnson […]
The anarchist’s wet dream!
Forty-third book reviewed as part of the 130 Challenge. How would you like a ball busting, head chopping, tank driving bitchy diva who has serious fun while doing it all? Bring it on, I hear you say? Well, that and a lot, lot more than that is what Tank girl is all about. Tank Girl is an outlaw living in the Australian Outback who hangs out with her boyfriend, a mutant Kangaroo; her best friend, a junkie Aborigine; a stuffed toy Koala bear who hasn’t come […]
Anyway, you never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.
I think it’s fitting that I finished my Cannonball this year with another Cormac McCarthy novel. Ever since I discovered McCarthy, I’ve read one book of his per year. His books are amazing but intense, so I take nice long breaks in between. I’d been waiting to read No Country for Old Men (2006) because I’d seen the movie when it first came out, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about reading a McCarthy novel where I already knew what was going to happen. […]
McSweeney’s #10 (McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #10)
I saw the cover of this book at a book sale and I fell for it, hard. It’s a compilation of “genre” short stories: westerns, sci-fi, horror, crime, etc. The reason for my instant need to own? Contributing authors include: Michael Chabon (who also edited), Elmore Leonard, Neil Gaiman, Nick Hornby, Stephen King, Michael Crichton (who sadly contributed a rather lame tale), Dave Eggers, Harlan Ellison, and more. Love at first sight, I’ll tell you. It mostly lived up to my expectations as well. The majority […]