Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The (No Spoilers) Spoils of Poynton

The Spoils of Poynton by Henry James

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The Spoils of Poynton … should have been a short story rather than a novel. One can (almost) see the whole plot in the first few chapters. The simple set-up is this – Mrs. Gereth has lovingly and carefully collected art and antiques her entire adult married life with her husband. After his death it is discovered that Mr. Gereth has bequeathed the whole kit and caboodle, along with the stately home she has lived in her entire married life, to their only son Owen, […]

A ghost story from the olden days

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

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This period thriller is from 1898 and is about a governess who is hired by a man to care for his niece and nephew. The governess begins the job with excitement, but soon experiences disturbing events and believes ghosts of deceased employees are coming for the kids. This novella was adapted from serial installments in the magazine Collier’s Weekly. It was interesting to read a ghost story from over 100 years ago and see how similar it is to modern-day ghost stories, but in a […]

“I call it relief, though it was only the relief that a snap brings to a strain or the burst of a thunderstorm to a day of suffocation. It was at least change, and it came with a rush.”

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

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Even though after reading Henry James in school several times and then declaring him my nemesis, for he is the master triumphant of the never-ending sentence, and saying I would never read from him again, I could not then resist the pull of an audiobook narrated by Emma Thompson, and indeed I am glad I did not do so. Phewf, done with that nonsense. That is what it is like to read Henry James. The first paragraph in The Wings of the Dove nearly killed […]

A loose screw, or screwing ghosts, who’s to say?

The Turn of The Screw by Henry James

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Full disclosure: I was supposed to have read Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw for my AP Language class about 15 years ago, but like many books assigned to me, I forewent the reading and instead drew my knowledge heavily from my studious best friend and Spark Notes. That being said, I am currently quarantined in my parents’ house where a stack of my high school “faux reads” gather dust in the basement. I decided to tackle my abandoned scholastic literary foes — which […]

The Aspern Papers – Henry James (1888)

The Aspern Papers by Henry James

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Other than rereadings of “Daisy Miller” and “Beast in the Jungle” for teaching purposes, this is the first Henry James I’ve read since a college class I took my senior year. It takes it out of you to read several of his novels, and many many of his short fiction in a single semester. It’s very rewarding as well, but it’s tasking. This novella didn’t feel as tasking and I don’t know if that’s just because I am older and a better reader, if it […]

Read Harder Challenge 2018 Complete! Final Cannonball 10 Review!

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

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Sneaking in with a bit to spare, on a borrowed computer, and one book behind last year’s pace I’m finally posting my last review of Cannonball Read 10. This was the Read Harder 2018 task I was looking least forward to, and I managed to push it off until the last possible moment, but at least I am completing the challenge this year. Task 24 was to “read an assigned book you hated (or never finished)”. In reality I have very few books that I […]



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