Cannonball Read 11

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Sex, drugs and a little rock-n-roll in Iran

Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi

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Interestingly, in several ways I liked Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return better than the first book. And yet, I enjoyed the first book more. I put this towards Marjane Satrapi’s continuation of the first book by picking up where she left off but this time showing more growth. Literally (she has a growth spurt and puberty hits hard) and figuratively (learning about “new” authors, ideas, respect different cultures seem to have, values, drugs and more.). Though about the same amount of years go by, the radical differences of Vienna and Iran cannot but change Marjane. But when she […]

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9/11/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:363 |

Picture it: Iran 1979 and the world will never be the same

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by  Marjane Satrapi

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#cbr11bingo #banned Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (Persepolis, #1) by Marjane Satrapi (translated by Matia Ripa), was not what I expected. On one hand, I really had no idea what to expect; on the other hand, I had preconceived notions. But what it boils down to is, I am not sure I really liked this book. Or liked Satrapi. Many books I have come away with a feeling of, “I could be friends with that author.” Or at least, we could have a conversation as we have something in common. I have nothing in common with Satrapi. On the surface, she […]

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.

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9/4/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:351 |

When a book finds you

Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

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While I immensely enjoyed Other Words for Home ’s book did not “hit me in the face, turned me around and kick me in the butt.” I think what I was looking for was more of the current events mentioned (such as which bombing Jude was mentioning) and maybe more interacting with Jude and her cousin. Since Warga mentions in the afterward she had a personality more like the cousins than Jude growing up, Warga would be the perfect vessel to show both sides of the story (a girl growing up in a Muslim family in Syria and coming to […]

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.

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5/31/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:199 |

WTF Indeed

The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Kim Barker

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A couple of years ago, a movie came and went starring Tina Fey called Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, the military call letters for WTF. I didn’t even remember the movie until I went looking for reviews for The Taliban Shuffle after I’d read it. I sometimes like to read reviews after I’ve finished a book, just to see if my thinking is in line with the critics’. One thing I discovered while doing so this time, apart from the fact that the book was made in to a movie, was that the reviews are as mixed as the characters in Kim […]

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.

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1/6/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:1 |

Beauty, mystery, tradition, belonging and faith

Deep in the Sahara by Kelly Cunnane

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The theme of Deep in the Sahara is simple: An Arab girl of the Sahara who wants to wear a malafa, the veil/dress worn by the women of her faith.  She wants to wear the malafa to be like the women of the village, but it is not until she learns what it really means that her mother allows her to wear it. Kelly Cunnane tells you that the malafa represents all the things the girl thinks it is: beauty, mystery, tradition and belonging. But it also means faith. The words are poetic and as vibrant as the art of Hoda Hadadi. The […]

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8/22/2018 's CBR10 Review No:315 |

Don’t do me like that

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

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CBR10BINGO: And So It Begins My favorite book series is Iain M. Banks’s Culture. Each book offers a self-contained story of its own time and place within the vast universe of the Culture. Sure, it’s helpful to have the incremental, accumulated knowledge of the Culture that comes from reading multiple books, but you don’t have to keep track of characters and timelines.  I also appreciate series like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Vandermeer’s Southern Reach that are really just one long book broken into smaller volumes. I like the idea of these large-scale, cohesive works that can be consumed […]

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8/3/2018 's CBR10 Review No:41 |

Remembering for both of them.

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan

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There are many ways to approach a review of this book.  “Salt Houses” is about a  family constantly displaced through the generations by war. It is about the loss of a cultural identity and the struggle to find one. It is about finding who you are and being true to yourself no matter how difficult it may be for those around you. I prefer to think of it as a love story. Steeped in the conflicts of the Middle East from after World War II to present day, the story follows four generations of the Yacoub family from Palestine to […]

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4/2/2018 's CBR10 Review No:20 |

Army Chief of Staff Reading List #1

Blood Year: The Unraveling of Western Counterterrorism by David Kilcullen

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I read this book because it entered the Army Chief of Staff reading list last year. The author, David Kilcullen, begins by discussing his qualifications and more importantly, declares his biases or specifically, the lack thereof. Kilcullen is an Australian and acknowledges that he is not registered to vote in the United States nor does he affiliate with any particular party’s politics. Books like this often seem politicized so it was refreshing for the author to be so candid. In Blood Year, he is highly critical of both the Bush and Obama presidencies and decisions they made that led to […]

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1/4/2018 's CBR10 Review No:1 |


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