native voices – Cannonball Read 17

laughing to keep from crying

We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans and Comedy by Kliph Nesteroff

April 28, 2021 by andtheIToldYouSos 2 Comments

A book to make you howl with both laughter and fury, We Had a Little Real Estate Problem gushes with humor, outrage, determination, and life. Kliph Nesteroff has worked with a large and knowledgeable team to document the past, track the current, and look towards the future of Native American comedy. Framed around a beloved punchline from Charlie Hill, the first Native American comedian to be featured on The Tonight Show, We Had a Little Real Estate Problem, is both a knee-slapper and a heart-breaker. I […]

Started November 12th. Finished January 12th. The breaks in reading were NECESSARY

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

January 12, 2021 by andtheIToldYouSos 7 Comments

…but the journey was worth it. This book is brutal. If you are sensitive at all to suffering- be it human, animal, generational, cultural- turn away now and do not look back. Four Blackfeet men engage in a bit of last-minute less-than-legal Elk hunting the weekend before Thanksgiving. What happens that day never really leaves them, but what they left behind comes rocketing back into their lives 10 years later. The 10 years since that day have not been easy; the men are plagued by […]

Cohesive beauty that’ll knock you off your feet

An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo

December 18, 2020 by Mobius_Walker 2 Comments

Joy Harjo a member of the Mvskoke Nation and is the current Poet Laureate of the United States. In An American Sunrise, Harjo skillfully crafts a collection poems that are deeply personal to her own life, highly informative of the Native history and experience, and wonderfully universal in truth and beauty. What I found the most beautiful of the entire collection was Harjo’s ability to weave not just consistent themes throughout the entire collection but her ability to layer details, events, and people throughout the […]

Dear Diary; nature has gone haywire

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

December 29, 2019 by andtheIToldYouSos Leave a Comment

A young Native American woman learns that she is pregnant in a time of miracles and disaster; nature has gone haywire. Evolution has sped up, gone sideways, and/or stopped all together. Times are trying. It is a particularly frightening time to be a single person with an unplanned pregnancy- especially when religious-esque government agents are collecting and imprisoning pregnant women. Our narrator, Cedar, gives us her story through the pages of her diary. She is keeping accounts of her body and the world around her […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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