Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

You are all Dead Spirits

Warra Warra Wai: How Indigenous Australians discovered Captain Cook, and what they tell about the coming of the Ghost People by Darren Rix; Craig Cormick

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So as a school kid in Australia back in the nineties, I remember being taught, like many of my peers, the Captain Cook ‘discovered’ Australia. Except that wasn’t quite true, was it? To add all the qualifiers, Cook and his crew are probably best described as the first set of Europeans to visit the east coast of Australia …after the dutch sort of poked around in the west.  But very little discussion time was given to the people that had lived in Australia for tens […]

A complex fantasy with many stories woven together

Aunt Tigress by Emily Yu-Xuan Qin

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I was immediately drawn to Aunt Tigress by the cover, and the synopsis had me intrigued. Tam is a young woman living in Calgary where the magic from her tiger father is weak because it’s far from the forces she calls on for exorcisms and other magics, but she also knows to respect the magic of First Nations without trying to steal it. Or at least, that’s what her father tried to teach her before he died when she was 12, and her Aunt Tigress […]

I would not have been a settler.

Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne

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I read S.C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon as part of a book club. The titular empire in this work of history is Comanche empire. Gwynne says it was the Comanches that determined when the West opened up to white settlers. For decades and decades, no one could get around them. About half-way through our club meeting, someone asked a question that’s good to ask about any book: What is this book about? Empire’s cover features Comanche leader Quanah Parker, and Parker’s name is […]

An Unbelievable Life

Born Again Blakfella. by Jack Charles; Namila Benson

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  Jack Charles certainly started Born Again Blakfella with a memorable scene. As a beloved actor in Australia and noted First Nations activist, you would think that he would start by drawing attention to his achievements in both of these fields. But Charles decided to start his memoir with a facet of his life that didn’t lead to him getting glowing reviews in the newspapers: “It’s the middle of the night and I’m huddled over, dragging my dilly bad, which is chock full of all […]

The first book in a series without much resolution, but a very strong start

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

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Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse is told through four points of view throughout the novel with some flashbacks here and there. Serapio is a member of the Carrion Crow nation who has been prepared by his mother to be the religious leader of their nation. Narampa is the Sun Priest of the Watchers and the figurehead of the dominate religious system of the land (though the other priests don’t all accept her leadership and conspire behind her back). Xiala is a ship captain and a […]

One body holds a universe

Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead

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  Home is a feeling. That’s a line in the beautifully written Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead, a Two Spirit, Oji-Cree author. But it’s also something of a manifesto for Jonny, an indigiqueer young man whose physical body carries all the love, pain and connections to land and people in his life. Like a beautiful hermit crab, he builds a shell to protect himself from homophobia, from feeling the generations of pain in his family, from loving too much. And that same shell is bedecked with […]



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