Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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The Road to Hell

Hitler: 1889-1936, Hubris by Ian Kershaw

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Read this as part of CBR15Bingo: Europe. Adolf Hitler’s entire life story takes place in Europe and he, more than any one person, instigated a world war that began in Europe. Many times, Europe is considered a fancy, civilized place and I think we need to own how historically, western Europe has given the world a horrifying amount of barbarism between colonization, the transatlantic slave trade, and the Holocaust.  While far from an expert on Nazi Germany, I perhaps know more about it than the typical […]

Hiding in plain sight.

Alias Anna: A True Story of Outwitting the Nazis by Susan Hood and Greg Dawson

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Alias Anna: A True Story of Outwitting the Nazis is a romanticized look at how two Jewish girls lived when millions did not. Told in alternating voices, the Narrator, and “Anna” herself or, Zhanna Arshanskaya we learn how Zhanna and her sister Frina, were hiding in plain sight. They performed for the Nazi command, allies of the Nazi and eventually, for themselves. But no matter how much they feared being found out, betrayed by supposed friends, or their hatred of the Nazis, they always felt […]

Fun discovering new authors

Heroes and Villains by Lewis Shiner

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I love discovering new authors. A few months ago, I signed up for a grab bag of books from a publisher and this was included in the pack. I saved it until the end, as I was unfamiliar with the author, now I wish I would have moved it towards the top of the queue. Heroes and Villains is a collection of 4 short stories, all dealing with clear protagonists and adversaries. In some ways it reads like a classic comic book (and I mean […]

Horror Story on the Eve of Hitler’s Takeover

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Grossman returns with a prequel to his horrifying The Sleepwalkers, which I’ve reviewed earlier. In Children of Wrath, the respected Berlin homicide detective and decorated WWI veteran Willi Kraus is just starting to feel the effects of the rising tide of anti-Semitism. It is 1929, and Hitler is still largely viewed as a vulgar upstart by the self-absorbed political aristocracy, but his power is nonetheless growing as the Great Depression begins to ravage the war-weary German economy. The Kripo, the bureau of criminal investigation where […]

Medical horrors on the eve of Hitler’s takeover

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A murder mystery and quasi-historical novel in one, Grossman gives us Berlin on the verge of the Nazi takeover in 1932. A surgically altered corpse, missing sleepwalkers, a famous hypnotist and a Nazi doctor all enter the picture during the murder investigation undertaken by decorated German WWI veteran and celebrated homicide detective Willi Kraus. A widower with two sons, Kraus is also a Jew who is at first as blind to the ramifications of his investigation as he is to the rising tide of fascism. […]

Dude, what if Hitler like came back to life of sth

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Imagine what would happen, if Hitler woke up in 2011 in field in Germany, alive and well, thinking it was still 1945. Timur Vermes explores this idea in Look Who’s Back. In it, Hitler still has his old ideas about Jews, the French etc. and is soon discovered by TV producers, who find his ideas and delivery amusing and quickly find a spot for him on a popular TV show. The German nation loves his shtick and finds him to be a great Hitler impersonator […]



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