Omar El Akkad – Cannonball Read 17

“What beautiful rebellion … to feel anything at all.”

What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad

March 13, 2022 by booktrovert Leave a Comment

I am a book reader because I love to escape and imagine the lives of others. Books are a way to touch lives that I would never be able to reach in my limited, brief time here on Earth. I have spent my 40 something years here mostly in the United States, post colonialism and legal slavery, with access to the Internet at my fingertips for the half of my life that seems most relevant to me now. With all the luck that brought me […]

Every man you ever meet is nothing but the product of what was withheld from him, what he feels owed.

What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad

September 14, 2021 by Leedock Leave a Comment

CBR13 BINGO: Travel (Alexandria Egypt to a Mediterranean island) BINGO! (Free to Machinery row) I love it when CBR Bingo brings something into my life that I may not have picked up otherwise. On the hunt for the “Travel” square, this title jumped out from the new book display at my library and turned out to be one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. When bodies wash up on a small Mediterranean island, the local officials gather the remains and comb through the detritus of […]

Whoa, a little too real!

October 3, 2018 by thewheelbarrow 2 Comments

I thought this book sounded interesting when I first heard of it a little while ago. Then it started showing up on a few recommended reading lists that I follow. I was surprised not just by the number of recommendations but from where they came. As a military person, I read some military blogs, one such blog is called ‘From the Green Notebook.” The green notebook is a ubiquitous tool used by leaders in the military as a planner and notepad and the blog is […]

Journalist, born in Egypt, grew up in Qatar, moved to Canada, now lives in Oregon, writes book about the Second US Civil War. Is Awesome.

September 6, 2018 by Mrs Smith Reads Leave a Comment

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. — George Santayana If you were to guess what might cause a second US civil war, what would it be? Given the current political debate over the Trump administration, one might think it wouldn’t be so much a physical divide as an ideological one. Yet, in American War, by Omar El Akkad, the second civil war is imagined as erupting in 2074 over fossil fuels, because some southern states refuse to give them up, for […]

The novel we deserve

April 27, 2017 by KimMiE" 2 Comments

American War is the most timely and poignant novel I’ve read in years. Grim from the first chapter, this isn’t a novel that will make you cry, but it sure as hell will make you despair. Set in 2075, the America of this future has been torn apart by a second Civil War. Three Southern states have broken off from the Union in order to maintain the freedom to use fossil fuels, which have been banned by the Union due to the devastation they have wrought on the continent. […]

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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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