Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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To tell the truth, the whole truth

Muhammad Najem, War Reporter: How One Boy Put the Spotlight on Syria by Muhammad Najem

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cbr17bingo Diaspora (this could be culture, but he upheaval of the Syrian people unfortunately fits.) Sadly, this book, Muhammad Najem, War Reporter: How One Boy Put the Spotlight on Syria, is nonfiction. I say sadly as nobody, let alone children and teenagers should have to go through what he did. Muhammad Najem, Nora Neus and Julie Robine gathered their talents and told the story of Muhammad as he risked not only his life, but the lives of his family, friends and neighbors. He wanted to be […]

Lee Miller’s War

Lee Miller: A Life by Carolyn Burke

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Model, muse, photographer, war correspondent – Lee Miller wore many hats and lived many lives, and along the way intersected with major figures in the Surrealist movement. Lee Miller had the tumultuous sort of life that makes for fascinating reading, and considering I knew very little about her past the famous picture of her bathing in Hitler’s bathtub, everything I read was a revelation. She worked so closely with more prominent artists of the Surrealist movement as both model and collaborator that it astounds me […]

“Politics is like dice: the better the player, the worse the man”

Heartstone: A Matthew Shardlake Tudor Mystery by C.J. Sansom

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It’s 1545 and Henry VII has gotten England into a war with France; seeing as it’s Tudor-Era England, war with France, Spain, Scotland, or England itself is not really that surprising. It looks like the French will land their invasion force at Portsmouth. Too bad that Portsmouth is around the area Matthew Shardlake is being sent by his patron, Queen Catherine Parr. A servant in Parr’s former household has come to the Queen for assistance; the servant’s son has allegedly killed himself after swearing out […]

“For even to listen to the story of the Trưng Sisters is, in these troubled times, a dangerous act.”

Bronze Drum by Phong Nguyen

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The Trưng sisters, Trắc and Nhi, are as different than each other than sisters can be, but they are united in one thing – their outrage at the treatment of the Viet by the colonizing Han Chinese. When their outrages grow too heavy to bear, they raise an army of women to fight back. It occurred to me while I was reading this book that not only do I know very little about Vietnam past the eponymous war (and even that mostly through the eyes […]

Grossly Misdirected Rage

Beloved Enemy by Amanda York

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Lanna, an English gentlewoman, falls in love with one young American but finds herself coerced into marriage with his dark-tempered friend, who seems intent on punishing her for reasons she does not understand. Look at that cover. Take a moment to appreciate that cover. I really miss old bodice-ripper style romance covers. Anyway, young, sheltered Lanna falls squarely in the trap of a dastardly devil with mommy issues who’s trying to get revenge on her father through her, except it turns out that Lanna is […]

The girl, the mother, the countess and the parrot

The Hotel Balzaar by Kate DiCamillo

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Author Kate DiCamillo is one of those authors I find myself having hits and misses with. I still consider her an author I enjoy, but I’m not always the audience she was going for. With that said, I was excited when I found a copy of The Hotel Balzaar (illustrated by Júlia Sardà) in our (unfortunately) damaged books. I had been wanting to read something that was a novel to break my graphic novel habit (as you know a favorite genre) but nothing too heavy. […]



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