Most of what I know about Pablo Escobar I learned from the ESPN documentary series 30 for 30. The documentary, called The Two Escobars, is about the murder of Colombian soccer player Andrés Escobar after scoring an own goal that led to the elimination of Colombia during the 1994 World Cup. Pablo Escobar was killed a few months prior and the directors of the documentary believed that due to Pablo’s fanaticism towards soccer, his influence may have prevented Andrés death. It made Pablo seem bizarrely […]
Corazon Rebelde
I picked up Dreaming in Cuban from my TBR pile after a much needed break from a ton of true crime, murder mystery and horror novels. It’s a lovely little book about 3 generations of Cubans (mostly women) and their starkly different reactions to the Cuban revolution of 1959. It’s a bit of history, magical realism and the complicated relationships between mothers and their children all rolled into one. And while it’s not a standout example of either, Cristina Garcia’s writing is lyrical and […]
There’s certainly a lot of damned things that happen
If there’s one thing that can be said about this book, it’s that it lives up to its title. The premise is fascinating: An institute of historical research called St Mary’s, associated with the (also fictional) University of Thirsk in northern England, is not the stuffy old institution it appears to be but actually conducts its historical research in the most contemporary way possible–they go back in time and observe the events firsthand. The main character, Dr Madeleine Maxwell, called Max, is recruited by St […]
Trudge: The Unmooring of Exposition
Greetings CBR! I’m excited to begin my first ever half cannonball with a nod to my New Year’s resolution: to read more nonfiction in 2017. Unfortunately, I started with this disappointing book by one of my longtime favorite personalities, Rachel Maddow. In Drift, Maddow describes the USA’s descent into a near constant state of war. She laments how sharply we’ve deviated from the Jeffersonian ideal to “never keep an unnecessary soldier”, and how in our modern national security state, American civilian life continues largely unaffected […]
“Fighting Food to Find Transcendence”
I read this book on the recommendation of the podcast Stuff You Missed in History Class in their episode that discussed this case. I highly recommend both the podcast and the book. The case of Linda Burfield Hazzard is a fascinating one. It’s also interesting to see that the lengths many people will go in order to cure their real or imagined maladies hasn’t changed much. What has changed is how we deal with the practitioners of these so-called natural cures. Sisters Claire and […]
Reincarnation meets Groundhog Day….
Not my ideal choice for a first pick, but it was a book club selection that I was supposed to have read back in Nov/Dec, and I’m nothing if not an extraordinary procrastinator. I persevered through this with the gusto of someone who is determined to stick with a New Years Resolution. If I picked this up in October, I couldn’t guarantee the same enthusiasm. Life After Life was one of those books that I finished and said, “I think I liked it? Maybe? I […]
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