Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

I had a lot of clever titles for this review but none of them fit.

Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan and Noah Stollman

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Recently I was emailing a representative of a publisher my work deals with. We were talking about a book dealing with the 12 Day War between Iran and Israel that is coming out this fall. I mentioned I would like to find something that showed the other side of the story as well. I figure one should get all the information one can and you’ll probably have a better understanding of things as a whole. The person mentioned they liked Rutu Modan. However, she was […]

Over 700 words and I didn’t say what I wanted to

Silence, Full Stop: A Memoir by Karina Shor

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WARNING: several trigger moments. When you get about a third of the way into a book and you know if you like it or not is an odd sensation. But a helpful one. Afterall, if you really really do not like it, you can stop and nothing is really lost. And if you like it, you can continue and nothing is lost but mostly it’s all gain. But what about that book (it might be rare) but you don’t like anything but you don’t hate […]

A Kids Book About Israel & Palestine

A Kids Book About Israel & Palestine by Reza Aslan

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I bought this for the children’s room I work in. And then I read it, because I am very much an “explain it to me like I’m six years old” person. The book very simply lays out the facts that led to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I have been fairly outspoken about Palestinian rights, and most of my Jewish friends have been too, but I have some who stand up for Israel and I am trying to understand why. I don’t know that the book sold […]

Three For When It Happens Here

Spook Street by Mick Herron

Guide Me Home by Attica Locke

The Order by Daniel Silva

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Like a lot of folks in the ten days since the election, I’ve perhaps been slow to process the news. This has impacted my reading. Whereas I’m usually a speed reader, I have found myself often putting off my reading to do some mindless activities. Dealing with reality can be tough, the uncertainty of what comes after the next two months are over is difficult to grapple with. Inadvertently, the three books I’ve read from immediately before the election into the ten days since have […]

Three-Four-One

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

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Despite the backlash due to Coates’ writing and speeches on his time in Palestine, there are really three narratives in this travelogue. The Palestine one is the third one and it’s the one I’m going to spend as little time as possible on because I don’t want this page to be a forum on what’s happening there right now. I actually think the best essay here is the first one, where Coates finds himself in Dakar, Senegal. He has written at length about the rejection […]

Meet Allon, Gabriel Again

The Cellist by Daniel Silva

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I’ve been in a spy novel mood lately and, eventually, found myself circling back to the Gabriel Allon series. I read the first ten books years ago when I had something people call “free time.” I liked the idea of an art restorer as a spy and it was neat to see things from the perspective of the Mossad but like a lot of series, it lost its originality after a while and I put it aside. When researching which book to come back to, […]



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