Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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The Yugo was a lemon, but this lemonade is more Country Time powder than fresh-squeezed

The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History by Jason Vuic

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I wanted to love this one, I really did! Much like my affinity for the dopey little Yugo, I thought I could at least love this book ironically. Unfortunately, I found myself feeling like no Yugo customers found themselves feeling: bland pleasantness. I love a good micro-history, and I love a good world-wide failure, and while this book is well-researched, it just could not hold my attention. Perhaps it was because I listened as opposed to reading, but I frequently felt like I had somehow […]

Los Angeles Nightmare

The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy

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My James Ellroy kick continues, this time with a book that’s more of a horror novel than mystery. Book two of Ellroy’s LA Quartet, this is where he began to find his voice. One could see glimpses in The Black Dahlia of the writer he would become. The Big Nowhere proves he can handle a story with a larger scope than a typical paperback mystery. Ostensibly about the police squeezing the communists who hold the line for unions combating their studio employers, The Big Nowhere manages to mesh in the mob […]

Meerkats can teach us about corporate life, or something?

That's Not How We Do It Here!: A Story about How Organizations Rise and Fall--and Can Rise Again by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber

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Ok so I had to read this book for work.  I’m in this group at my job called the guiding coalition.  It’s all about making small changes to make bigger changes, and to get people involved and “energized”.  I don’t think I’ve drunken the Kool Aid yet.  We had to read this book to get us ready for “the big opportunity”.  We’re split into smaller groups and working on projects to improve our company.  I’m all for that, but it’s just a little culty for […]

I’m a fountain of blood in the shape of a girl…

The Veins of the Ocean by Patricia Engel

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Patricia Engel has published two other books, the short story collection Vida and the novel It’s Not Love, It’s Just Paris. Even though I haven’t read either of those books, I felt that I needed to read her new novel, The Veins of the Ocean. Not only because the reviews were intriguing (and very positive) but also because I don’t remember ever reading anything by a Colombian American novelist. The Veins of the Ocean is the story of Reina Castillo. When we first meet Reina […]

Feminism, Communism and Friendship

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante

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First, I’m thrilled to report that this third installment in the Neapolitan Novels series is not the last! The fourth is due later this year, and it’s a good thing because this novel, like the previous, like every good soap opera, leaves us hanging. How have these stories not been turned into a televised series? In book three, Ferrante takes us further into the loves and lives of Elena Greco and Lila Cerullo. Friends since childhood in working class Naples, they have become somewhat estranged […]

A young adult novel that everyone can read

Oranges for Christmas by Margarita Morris

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Thirty-eighth book reviewed as part of the 130 Challenge. People often don’t take the ‘adult’ part of ‘young adult’ seriously (myself included) and that is why we have so much sappy literature in this genre. We can definitely do much better. But despite that expectation, when I saw that ‘Oranges for Christmas’ was about the hard life in Communist East Germany, I thought it was being far too ambitious and I feared that it might turn out to be a drab post-war story. The story […]



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