Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Mad Genius

Armed With Madness: The Surreal Leonora Carrington by Mary M. Talbot

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Armed With Madness: The Surreal Leonora Carrington by Mary M. Talbot and illustrated by Bryan Talbot   I didn’t have time to be anyone’s muse… I was too busy rebelling against my family and learning to be an artist. — Leonora Carrington How reliable is the narrator? How honest is Carrington’s story? Was her madness her greatness or greatness her madness? The complex life of this artist unfolds in a mix of beauty, ugly and something in-between. A product of her time, a rebel of it […]

Zumrat Dawut

I Escaped a Chinese Internment Camp by Zumrat Dawut and Anthony Del Col

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While I wanted more from I Escaped a Chinese Internment Camp, this graphic novel is an interesting introduction to the people of  Xinjiang (an autonomous region in China) and how they have been treated by the Chinese government. Many women, among them  Zumrat Dawut, have been and are being persecuted because of their faith. Dawut is a Mulsim woman, a wife and a mother of three. She tells her story to Anthony Del Col and the United Nations Human Rights Council through interviews. There is […]

Beautiful reads

Seeker of the Truth: Kailash Satyarthi’s Fight to End Child Labor by Srividhya Venkat

A Song For August: The Inspiring Life of Playwright August Wilson by Sally Denmead

Love of the Half-Eaten Peach by Lee Wind

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I debated if I should write a review about three books I only read as samples. Yet, I realized that they are must know about and I do not think they will have any surprises when they finally come out.  All were read via online samples of the picture book. In mid-late July 2024 we will see Seeker of the Truth: Kailash Satyarthi’s Fight to End Child Labor. Srividhya Venkat’s book was the one that had the smallest sample, but I was hooked. Starting as […]

Couple of City Slickers in a John Wayne town

This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America by Navied Mahdavian

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Are you from CA and moved to The Middle of No Place? (Or from The City to The Country?) Did you try to live “off grid?” Did you mistake a coyote for a wolf? Do you think 2016 had the wrong person elected? If so, read this book, This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America by Navied Mahdavian. However,  if you think the right person was elected in 2016, keep walking. If you are looking for an interesting, but slightly self-centered, memoir, this […]

Mom and Me…

I Wish I Could Say "Thank You" by Yukari Takinami

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After reading GentleRain’s review of I Wish I Could Say “Thank You” by Yukari Takinami, I researched and found that while my bookstore could order me a copy, I decided that I would go the interlibrary loan route. I figured I could purchase a copy if I enjoyed it at a later time. And I probably will do that, but instead of keeping it for myself, I will donate it to my local library. I think others might be interested in this not easy to […]

She wrote the words to the stories

What I Must Tell the World : How: Lorraine Hansberry Found Her Voice by Jay Leslie

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Not only was Lorraine Hansberry a pioneer for many groups (women, playwrights, writers,  women of color, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community) she was a pioneer for reality. She told it as it was and that is amazingly told in this picture book, What I Must Tell the World : How: Lorraine Hansberry Found Her Voice. Jay Leslie tells the story of Hansberry from a young girl who would see first hand the prejudices of her time, but also would see the courage, the […]



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