Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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I Read All About It

The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch by Michael Wolff

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This book read like one Bond villain describing the machinations of another Bond villain with relish and glee. I read the first and last of Michael Wolff’s Trump books coming away unimpressed. Wolff gets the hot gossip, such as it is, by being an unrepentant jock sniffer but that’s all these books are: gossip. I never thought I’d read him again but as I’ve cast around for books on Rupert Murdoch in light of my love of the tv show Succession, this one kept coming up […]

In A Foreign Field

Missionaries by Phil Klay

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I usually enjoy former President Barack Obama’s recommended reading lists but, after reading Missionaries, I confess that its presence on his list kind of bugs me. This book is, among other things, a strong handed critique of borderless imperial war and I think it takes a certain kind of cynicism to set that aside and appreciate it solely on its literary value. Because, damn, this book is cynical. How could it not be? Frankly, I knew little about Colombia until reading it. I knew Simón Bolivar liberated it […]

Ask the Opposite

In the Company of Killers by Bryan Christy

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This is a work of fiction. The characters, scenes, and oplot are invented. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but fiction can be more illuminating. What is not invented are the rapidly escalating threats around the world to journalists and other truth seekers; the dangers of privatized defense and intelligence services, of divisive entertainment masquerading as journalism, and of the rising surveillance state. The excerpt above from Bryan Christy’s Acknowledgement at the end of this novel tells you everything you need to know about the […]

“It’s because I’m tired of being branded a terrorist; tired that a human life lost in my country is no loss at all.”

Our Women on the Ground: : Essays by Arab Women Reporting from the Arab World by Zahra Hankir

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Looking back, I can’t quite remember how this book ended up on my TBR back in February 2020. It did though and I’m glad to have read it, even if it took me longer than I hoped to actually complete it. There is something incredibly valuable about learning a story from the person experiencing it; of seeking out authentic voices and sources. In bringing Our Women on the Ground, Zahra Hankir puts the voice of women journalists from the Arab world front and center, where […]

Two women. Two powerhouses

The Power of Her Pen: The Story of Groundbreaking Journalist Ethel L. Payne by  Lesa Cline-Ransome

Marie Curie and the Power of Persistence by Karla Valenti

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Another recent health issue caused me to have a few days off from work and I did some reading. I first picked up a few picture books as I figured I could concentrate on them. And except for one book, they were all not easy. The first two were about women of history. Women that we might not know about or know about, but not everything. The Power of Her Pen: The story of Groundbreaking Journalist Ethel L. Payne by Lesa Cline-Ransome and John Parra is […]

“Ultimately, the reason Harvey Weinstein followed the route he did is because he was allowed to, and that’s our fault. As a culture that’s our fault.”

Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow

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Like a lot of people, I read this in close proximity to She Said, the other book published in 2019 about breaking the Harvey Weinstein story. (I liked She Said better. I liked that both authors were ladies, and I liked the close focus on true journalism and building relationships with their sources; it really centered the women’s stories and how they had been affected.) But this one is different enough in tone and style that it brings a lot to the table, as well, […]



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