Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Evil and the Mask

The Evil and the Mask by Fuminori Nakamura

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The protagonist of this novel grows up in a kind of cult (formed by his father) where he is told at some point that he was born to be a cancer on the world. This is not clearly spelled out for a very long time what exactly this means. But it’s a terrible and abusive cult and system nonetheless. Along with an adopted sister, he plots to and eventually kills his father and escapes. He grows up, changes his face through plastic surgery, and tries […]

When the End Comes

Cult X by Fuminori Nakamura

Cell by Stephen King

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I recently read two books with apocalyptic overtones. Neither were great but both were eminently readable, if weird and unfocused… Cult X * Well then. It’s almost impossible for a book as popular as Fuminori Nakamura’s Cult X to get anything less than a 3+ star rating on GoodReads. A book usually has enough vociferous defenders who give it gratuitous 5s to put it over the top. That this one was hovering at 2.97 when I picked it up was not a good sign for […]

It was early spring, and the second day of our journey.

The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy

The Beggar by Naguib Mahfouz

The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz

Autumn Quall by Naguib Mahfouz

Deed of Trust by Claudia Allen

Dear Elizabeth by Sarah Ruhl

Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn

The Round and Other Cold Hard Facts by JMG le Clezio

Fire Down Below by William Golding

Cult X by Fuminori Nakamura

The Long Valley by John Steinbeck

Being the Change by Sara K Ahmed

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The Kreutzer Sonata – 4/5 Stars This is a strange murder story by Leo Tolstoy in which we find a man who murdered his wife for having an affair (having caught her in the act) and then in acquitted. I am not spoiling this story for you at all because all of this is told to you in the first few pages. But what comes out of this telling is more about the nature of his crime and how he found himself in the position […]

Existential Dread Served With Your Crime Fiction

The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura

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I didn’t love The Thief but it’s one that will definitely stay with me. It’s not my typical tale: a story about an almost nameless career petty thief heisting wallets that shifts between the past and the present. In the past, he did a controversial job for some heavy hitter criminals in Japanese society and now he’s on the run. In the present, he’s done running and is getting by with thieving when he meets a poor boy and his mother, the former of whom he takes […]



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