Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


The Word ‘Turbulent’ Is Bearing a Lot of Weight Here

Bomb Season in Jakarta: A personal account of a turbulent period in Australian diplomacy by Grant Dooley

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This is yet another book I’ve discovered via listening to ABC’s Conversations.  The subtitle of Bomb Season in Jakarta is A personal account of a turbulent period in Australian diplomacy, and Grant Dooley is not kidding when he writes this. Back in 2004, Dooley and his family had moved to Indonesia to start a three year stint working at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. This was a few years after the 1999 East Timorese crisis and only two years after the 2002 Bali Bombings, Indonesia’s […]

“You are the queen. You are the queen that Antoinette wanted to be . . .”

Antoinette's Sister by Diana Giovinazzo

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CBR17 Bingo: Black – Behold, the cover. Though her tragic sister Marie Antoinette is better known today, Maria Carolina Charlotte, the queen of Naples, ruled with better success but faced her own share of troubles and tribulations in her years on the throne. The thing with historical fiction is that the story can live or die by the events it’s based on, especially when it follows the life of a historical figure. Luckily, Charlotte is an interesting main character. Though her attitudes toward the monarchy […]

We’re Traveling, We’re Traveling—Off the Page and Down the Rabbit Hole

Conspiracy Nation: Exposing the dangerous world of Australian conspiracy theories by Ariel Bogle; Cam Wilson

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I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while. Cookers, sovereign citizens and conspiracy theorists can be a fascinating bunch, albeit in the same way a train wreck is fascinating. Yes, it can be very amusing to watch them try and ‘pseudo law’ their way out of trouble when they caught doing something very stupid, but there’s often something darker lying under the surface. For every giggle you get from listing to some SovCit proclaim ‘I’m traveling, I’m traveling!’ after being pulled over by […]

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

1984 by George Orwell

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I don’t often reread books, the old adage of so little time, so many books ticking like a clock behind me. This is the book I have reread the most, at least 10 times at this point, and the book that I say is my favorite book of all time, depending on the audience. (My favorite book is really Lamb by Christopher Moore, but that is a fictional “what if” about the life of Jesus, that entire chunk that is missing in the Bible, and […]

Does this author ever write a bad book?

Spent: A Comic Novel by Alison Bechdel

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Spent: A Comic Novel by Alison Bechdel This graphic novel is not perfect, but it is darn close. There were just one or two small “bumps” for me. But overall fans will get a huge kick out of this. There is much happening and Bechdel uses their usual wit and observations to get the job done. Even if they cannot get the job of writing their new book or the TV script done. It is life during the years of 2020 to “now” (or around […]

Two pieces of history around the world

A Place Called Galveston by Andrea Shapiro

Claudia Said Sí!: The Story of Mexico's First Woman President by Deborah Bodin Cohen, Kerry Olitzky and Carlos Vélez Aguilera

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Recently I mentioned to a friend of mine that there are a lot of political titles happening, even in the children’s genres. And most are slanted seriously and obviously in one direction or the other. Therefore, when I find something that is not political, but could fit current events I try to pay attention.  Two of those books are A Place Called Galveston by Andrea Shapiro and illustrator Valerya Milovanova, as well as Claudia Said Sí!: The Story of Mexico’s First Woman President by Deborah […]



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