Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About thewheelbarrow

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I'm a 41yo father of three. My goal is to write as I read. Like it is every year.

thewheelbarrow's Reviews:

God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no water but the fire next time.

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

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I’d been looking forward to reading this since I (finally) started reading Baldwin last year. When this became available at the library at the start of Black History Month it seemed serendipitous. That, unfortunately, is where the joy and happy coincidences ended. I’ve wanted to read this since I read Between the World and Me a few years ago. The Fire Next Time served as inspiration to Coates, at least in the format of crafting a letter to a child, Baldwin’s nephew and Coates’ son. […]

Stars and Stones

Peace Talks by Jim Butcher

Battle Ground by Jim Butcher

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Let’s be honest, if you are reading this review then you are probably a big fan of the Dresden Files already. These are books 16 and 17 in the series after all.  It had been a while since we last saw Harry and the gang and I was really happy with his return. I first started the Dresden Files back in 2012 or 13 and read books 1-10 in an obscenely short amount of time, like a month. I was deployed and very bored at […]

2021 Army Professional Development #1

Kill Chain: Drones and The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins by Andrew Cockburn

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This book was recommended to me by a good friend at work. Coincidently, I have a different book called Kill Chain on my to-read list as well which made it a little confusing and I had to confirm that this was the one he wanted me to read. My friend and I are both in the Army but these days I work the Army equivalent of a desk job. I am a data analyst for the Army now after nearly a decade on the bomb […]

John Hodgman make me laugh

Medallion Status - True Stories from Secret Rooms by John Hodgman

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This book was recommended to me by cannonballer @andtheIToldYouSos after I read Vacationland last year. It is Hodgman’s most recent book and I might like it even more. I think it is definitely funnier but overall a little less poignant. Vacationland, while funny, had kind of a running theme to it – the idea of sacrificing aspects of self for parenthood and other adulthood realizations. Medallion Status had more of a running joke about airline miles, which was not as emotionally involving but at the […]

It’s Never Been Fair

The Color of Law- A Forgotten History of How our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

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After reading A Promised Land and feeling upbeat, I started The Color of Law because we don’t deserve happiness in 2021. The Color of Law, subtitled A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, sets out to prove, and I think very effectively, that segregation was and is the result of government policy. More simply, the policies are de jure not de facto. It was not the actions of people or institutions acting with prejudice but instead the laws passed, from the national to […]

Obama-rama pt.1

A Promised Land by Barack Obama

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Like many people, I’m sure, I was very excited to read President Obama’s memoir. As I do almost exclusively now, I listened to it and was delighted to find that he narrates it himself. It was absolutely delightful to listen to him speak for hours. I started my year off with this book as I hope it would set the proper tone for the new year. A whole lot happened while I listened to this book, namely the insurrection at the Capitol, so it was […]



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