Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


The Debt to Pleasure – John Lanchester (1996)

The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester

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CBR13Bingo – Libations Here, watch this:   On the one hand I liked a lot about this book, and on the other hand it got to be a little bit of a drag at certain parts. Like all food blogs, this novel, which poses as a cookbook or recipe book has a bit of a “when do they get to the fireworks factory” issue. Our narrator, an eclectic and cryptic food writer, is slowly taking us through a culinary adventure using the seasons as his […]

A Study in Literal ‘Othering’

The Wall by John Lanchester

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The Wall follows the exploits of a young Draftee, Kavanagh, as he does his time patrolling a literal Wall encasing his entire island nation (this name of which is never explicitly revealed). The Wall separates the ‘good’ people of Kavanagh’s homeland from the ‘Others’, sea-faring refugees who are desparately seeking to conquer The Wall and resettle in safe lands. A cataclysmic event (climate change? nuclear war?) has rendered most of the world uninhabitable and plunged most countries beneath the ever-rising sea. Kavanagh does not initially […]

It’s cold on the wall.

The Wall by John Lanchester

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We have a flat affect narration of a guard who’s serving on wall duty in a future version of England, now enclosed by a high, wide coastal wall (it made me think of the walls I’d build for Age of Empires). He’s on a two year duty of two weeks on, two weeks off civil service. The wall must be protected from the Others, anyone not already part of the UK, and any others who are able to get over all the wall, must be […]



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