Cannonball Read 9

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

It was “Untold”, don’t let it be unheard.

The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor by Jake Tapper

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The recommendation of a friend spurred the timing of my reading of The Outpost but I intended to read it for some time.  It’s written by CNN anchor Jake Tapper and made me a fan of his for life.  This is why it was originally a part of my to-read list: In 2009, I was deployed to Iraq.  I’d been in the Army almost three years and I spent the majority of my deployment on a staff in Baghdad.  I worked the night shift that year from the bowels of Al-Faw Palace, one of Saddam’s more extravagant palaces, for the […]

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9/14/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:2 |

I shouldn’t know more than our culture’s leading experts…

What Went Wrong? by Bernard Lewis

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While reading this, I found myself questioning beliefs I have held for many years. Not because this book presents novel ideas or is deeply informative about a subject I mistakenly thought I was familiar with (though it did represent what are to me novel ideas, and I am not overly familiar with this subject), but because its author’s views occupy the same space as mine, and he has fallen not only into controversy, but disfavor. Which, of course, makes me question how I see the world. I’ve long held that conservatism has been a suppressive force on cultures at various […]

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3/21/2017 | 's CBR9 Review No:22 |

For you a thousand times over.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

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I want to write a review that is unwieldy with munificence, so great is my love of this novel. I’m almost 70 books into my year, and am already going to call The Kite Runner the best thing I’ll read in 2016. Set mostly in Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion, this book follows the maturation of a Pashtun kid named Amir and his best friend Hassan, a Hazara boy. Amir’s mother died in childbirth, so he was raised by his father, who he affectionately calls Baba. Hassan is the son of Ali, who grew up with Baba, and is a […]

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8/12/2016 | 's CBR8 Review No:69 |

In our hour of darkness, Oh Lord, grant me vision

Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson

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In the summer of 2005, in the Korangal Valley of Afghanistan, a US Navy SEAL reconnaissance team was ambushed by local militia. Three of the four men were killed in the fight, and a quick reaction force helicopter sent in to rescue the team was destroyed by an RPG, killing all 8 SEALs on board. Only one man came out of the battle alive. This is his story. It’s a well-written book, both informative and entertaining. Luttrell sprinkles the book with humorous anecdotes about the friends he lost, and the training he received to be a SEAL team member. He […]

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7/30/2016 | 's CBR8 Review No:62 |

Resist the urge to go fetal

Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS by Joby Warrick

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He was a wannabe gangster and a high school dropout who got tattoos, drank and smoked, and sold drugs on the streets of Jordan. His mother was so concerned, she sent him to Muslim self-help classes. There, Ahmad Fadil found a new path. By the time he was killed in a U.S. airstrike in 2006, Fadil-by then known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi- had lead a new terrorist insurgency in Iraq and Jordan that resulted in tens of thousands of civilian deaths. That group was ISIS. It has cycled through different names and leaders, and it’s replaced al-Qaeda as the terrorist […]

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3/3/2016 | 's CBR8 Review No:34 |

Not your great-great-grandfather’s War of the Worlds.

Fear the Sky by Stephen Moss

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Throughout the entirety of this book’s length, I was thinking of how best to frame it to you guys. Because I think it’s really good, and I want more people to read it. I have a soft spot for end-of-the-world/invasion/post-apocalyptic fiction, and Fear the Sky offered me something wholly different and unexpected: a rich story that isn’t just a vehicle for the decimation of society. Imagine Independence Day, only the aliens are smart enough to send (ten years in advance of their invasion fleet) a scouting party designed to disrupt humanity’s defensive capabilities. And the aliens, never mind being technologically […]

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3/2/2016 | 's CBR8 Review No:20 |

Oh, the places you’ll go!

The Places in Between by Rory Stewart

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It was months after 9/11 when Rory Stewart decided to walk across Afghanistan. The country was in disarray, but despite warnings from the Afghan government, villagers and anyone with a lick of common sense, Stewart insisted on going. One foreign journalist, after hearing his plan, asked Stewart if he’d ever read Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer’s story of an American dumbass who tried to make it in the Alaskan wilderness without any supplies (I know we’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but come on, man). That journalist saw a parallel between that doomed journey and Stewart’s. On […]

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2/15/2016 | 's CBR8 Review No:27 |

And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education by Craig M. Mullaney

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I picked up The Unforgiving Minute as it was on the 2014 U.S. Army Chief of Staff’s Professional Reading List. As I’ve mentioned before, I love to read fiction for fun but I was commuting an hour to work each way so I decided to listen to audiobooks to pass the time. I thought it would benefit me professionally to read the books recommended by the leader of my branch of service. This book became available in April and I listened to it over the course of a week. The Unforgiving Minute is the memoir of Craig Mullaney. Mullaney is […]

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12/15/2014 | 's CBR6 Review No:23 |

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