Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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“We’ll fly to freedom together one day.” — Moving and Important Portrayal of Escape from North Korea

The Other Side of Tomorrow by Tina Cho and Deb JJ Lee

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I’d been putting off reading this for a bit because I felt like it was going to be stressful, but as part of my effort to work through the piles sitting around my house, I finally picked it up again (I had started at one point last year and got about three pages in). I’m glad I did, as this was a good look at the horrific journeys that people escaping from North Korea must go through. This is like the graphic novel version of […]

Literary fiction that I actually liked

Flashlight by Susan Choi

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The Book: It’s kind of hard to say what Flashlight is about. The summary makes it sound almost like a mystery: Louisa and her father take a walk on the beach, and hours later, she is found soaking wet and half-drowned, and he is nowhere to be found and presumed drowned. But most of the book is less concerned with this mystery than with the complicated family dynamics at play between the four main characters. Louisa’s father, Serk, is Korean, although he was born in […]

Inside The Hermit Kingdom

The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un by Anna Fifield

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I’d been meaning to read some non-fiction about North Korea. I have one book on Kindle and there are others but this one struck my fancy through recommendations. And it was the right call. This one rocks. As much as I enjoy a Battle Cry of Freedom-esque long history tome, I prefer something slimmer to give me an entry level view on a subject. That’s Anna Fifield’s work right here. She does a great job of pulling back the curtain to the Hermit Kingdom and its […]

“It amazed me how quickly a lie loses its power in the face of truth.”

In Order to Live: a North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park, Maryanne Vollers

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First, I feel a little bad rating In Order to Live: a North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom three stars. Park’s life story to the point of her writing this book, just 21 years, is full of the sort of deprivations, suffering, drive to survive, and eventually hope that make you want to love the work. Yeonmi Park’s life deserves notice and her book deserves to be read. Unfortunately for me, it felt more like homework than a captivating read. Second, there are some books […]

The Secret Mission to Feed North Koreans

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Based on a true story, Rice from Heaven: The Secret Mission to Feed North Koreans gives a softer view of a very true hardship the people of North Korea face. When a village in South Korea decides to secretly send balloons filled with rice to feed the hungry people of North Korea, they are faced with many obstacles: the other villagers do not want to give aide to the enemy. The North Korean soldiers could see the balloons and shoot them down. They do not […]

Repeating history?

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I have many thoughts about this book but as always, here’s the situation that led to me reading it.  This Kind of War is another book from the Army Chief of Staff’s reading list.  It has also been recommended by Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis as a must-read. Secretary Mattis is known, colloquially, as the Warrior Monk due to his dedication to his craft and his knowledge and understanding of making war.  He is known to be a voracious reader and believes that all leaders […]



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