Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

To Hell, Not Back

The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias

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Read as part of CBR14 Bingo: snakes. This book has several references to snakes, and also I think one of the characters turned into a snake? It was a wild scene, regardless.  It took me two tries to get into this one but ultimately, I’m glad I did. It didn’t match the hype but it’s a good read on its own. Essentially, there are two books here: the first 20% that’s a compelling novel and the rest which is the magical mystery tour through the throes of […]

You have to pick a book or two

Wombat Said Come In by Carmen Agra Deedy

Two White Rabbits by Jairo Buitrago

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Picture book round up time! Both these books can be for any age, however, there are sensitive issues that might not be for everyone. Wombat Said Come In is a multiple layered story. It is about friendship, loss and even about limits. Wombat is sitting down when he hears a knock, a friend is in need. The land is on fire and one by one the knocks on the door find another friend in need. Of course, maybe a bit hesitantly (especially when the house […]

Grandmothers are special

Something about Grandma by Tania de Regil

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Julia goes to stay with her grandmother for the first time without her parents. And there is Something about Grandma and something about her house, the area she lives, the town and more. The things Julia does with her grandmother are different. They have sugar bread that is brought to them in a basket, that the lady delivery it places on her head.  There are different smells, colors and hot chocolate can cure homesickness. Her grandmother knows when Julia has picked limes from the garden, […]

What This Cruel War Is About

El Chapo: The Untold Story of the World's Most Infamous Drug Lord by Noah Hurowitz

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I’ve long avoided books about El Chapo, Mexican drug cartels, and other similar subjects because I think most US citizens have an outlandish view of how the drug trade actually works. In the brief encounters with Mexican drug cartels in fiction, the gangsters are portrayed as overly-tattooed, desperately violent and almost amoral. While there are, of course, shades of that in real life, it also shows a cartoonish image as an avatar for the average North American citizen’s inability to grapple with how its racist drug […]

Narcos

The Cartel by Don Winslow

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Years ago, I read Robert Andrew Powell’s This Love Is Not For Cowards. Powell, a US journalist moved to Juarez, Mexico at the time when it was the most dangerous metropolitan area on earth. He did it to follow the local football (soccer) team, learn about its fan culture and what it meant to be so devout to a team while existing in a war zone. A scene from that book has stuck with me almost ten years since I read it. Powell reports on a shooting […]

Soldier For Fortune

Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler and the Making and Breaking of the American Empire by Jonathan M. Katz

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An excellent read and an infuriating read. Worth all five stars. And like Du Bois’ Black Reconstruction and Ackerman’s Reign of Terror, you’re guaranteed to be peeved on every page. I knew the United States had a colonizing history dating back, well really to its foundation through the US-Mexican War of the 1840s, but more specifically from the end of the 19th century onwards. I knew that we captured many islands in the Caribbean and Pacific respectively, even if I didn’t know the hows-and-whys. Jonathan M. Katz does […]



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