Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Luke Cage meets noir meets The Diviners meets more please!

Abbott by Saladin Ahmed, Sami Kivelä

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Abbott is a brief, five-issue series set in 1970s Detroit about journalist Elena Abbott, lone black female reporter at the Detroit Daily. Abbott prefers to delve into the stories the paper’s board would rather not see printed. She’s recently getting heat for her piece on the death of a black teen at the hands of police, but so far she’s been protected by her loyal boss. She has a new case on the horizon and it’s a grisly one.  A mutilated police horse is found and the Detroit PD claims the crime stinks of the Black Panthers.  As Elena digs […]

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  • Abbott by Saladin Ahmed, Sami Kivelä

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

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3/13/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No: 19 |

Ms. Desmond, you’re the wrong color to be sitting there

Viola Desmond Won't Be Budged! by Jody Nyasha Warner

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This is not a 5 because it is the best book ever. It is very good, but it is not my favorite book. However, it is a 5 because it is talking about history in a time, place and about a gender we donot hear a lot about. We learn about a woman of color who sat down for her rights and the rights of every black Canadian. And in a way, she stood up (by sitting) for people of color everywhere. To see a woman, I have never heard about written about, was a pleasant surprise. I like history […]

Help Support Cannonball Read

Buy the following on Amazon and help our mission to stick it to cancer, one book at a time:

We pay for our website first, and then all proceeds above and beyond those fees are donated to the American Cancer Society in AlabamaPink's name. Find out how else you can help support our mission.

Share the post "Ms. Desmond, you’re the wrong color to be sitting there"

2/12/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No: 40 |

The United States v. Jackie Robinson

The United States v. Jackie Robinson by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen

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A non-fiction book about Jack Robinson. Or better known as Jackie Robinson. The United States v. Jackie Robinson is not a typical biography of a baseball player. They start out with him being a child growing up as the only black family on their street. His mother’s strength and finally Jackie’s strength in the military. Few probably know that Jackie would not give up his seat on a bus either and it lead to a historic ruling, too. Finally, it ends with some of his baseball career and the Jackie Robinson most people know. The timeline at the end of […]

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5/30/2018 | Post by

A worthy literary endeavor that left me underwhelmed

The Underground Railroad: A Novel by Colson Whitehead

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Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Underground Railroad, was another Mocha Girls Read book club selection. The novel follows Cora on her Odyssey-like journey to escape slavery traveling a magical realistic underground railroad. “Here was the true Great Spirit, the divine thread connecting all human endeavor – if you can keep it, it is yours. Your property, slave or continent. The American imperative.” – page 80 It begins in Africa following the first slaves as they were stolen and brought over to America. From the jump, Whitehead does not mince words to describe the brutal reality of the sea […]

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12/29/2017 | Post by

Who knew buying a small town on eBay would lead to finding your purpose in life

Bring on the Blessings by Beverly Jenkins

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I had the fortune of visiting The Ripped Bodice to see Beverly Jenkins speak about her new historical romance novel, Breathless. After the event, I was kindly invited to join the LA chapter of Mocha Girls Read book club. I’m so thankful Ms. Jenkins and my favorite bookstore introduced me to a lovely book club group! Having an in-person book club kept up my motivation to read more books to review for Cannonball Read. 🙂 Bring on the Blessings by Beverly Jenkins was the February selection and much needed palette cleanser I needed after reading The Heart Don’t Lie. The first book in the Blessings series introduces us […]

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12/29/2017 | Post by

An unintended theme

Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King's Final Year; Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Tavis Smiley with David Ritz; Manning Marable

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I trust that these two figures, Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, require no introduction. Without qualification, they are two of the most important American figures of the 20th century. Contemporaries, they often took up oppositional positions, though they were fighting for the same cause: the right of black Americans to claim the equality they were rightfully owed. Both men gave their lives to the struggle, and have gone on to represent a great many things to a great number of people. Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Final Year by Tavis […]

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9/5/2017 | Post by

Like a truth revealed to the self-assured, I wasn’t ready for this.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

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I am a white male in my 30s. Written as a letter to his 15 year old son, this is a memoir of being black in America by a 39 year old man with a life wholly different from mine. I point this out not to argue that this book has nothing to offer me, but to acknowledge that I am coming to this book with a different set of tools – a different language, even. The context I use to make sense of the world around me is different from that of Ta-Nehisi Coates. This is, perhaps, best exemplified […]

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11/18/2016 | Post by

Louis Armstrong Is Amazing

Who Was... Louis Armstrong by Yona Zeldis McDonough

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I have read several books from the Who Was series. I recently re-read Who Was… Louis Armstrong because I had to do a Black History Month project and I remembered reading it and loving it. Who Was… Louis Armstrong by Yona Zeldis McDonough tells the story of Louis Armstrong’s life and how he didn’t get much proper schooling, he spent most of his schooling in a corrective school because him and his friends were going to shoot off a few cap guns in the street and his cap gun got replaced by a real gun and accidentally he shot it off. […]

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3/11/2014 | Post by


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