Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Her dedushka teaches

Dedushka: Memories of My Grandpa and Ukraine by Katerina Spaeth

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When you try to read a book online and you can’t find the format for your equipment, or you just can’t find a copy, you get a little more than a little more than frustrated. Or at least  I do. And that is what happened with Dedushka: Memories of My Grandpa and Ukraine by Katerina Spaeth. I could not find a reader copy anywhere. And I was not looking forward to waiting until September 2025 for it. But, finally one day in April there was […]

Hail To the President

Brave Volodymyr: The Story of Volodymyr Zelensky and the Fight for Ukraine by Linda Elovitz Marshall

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After reading the chapter book about ghosts, I found a book about Volodymyr Zelensky. I figured you cannot get farther apart in subjects, so it was the perfect next read.  Now, I will say that while I enjoyed Brave Volodymyr: The Story of Volodymyr Zelensky and the Fight for Ukraine, it is slanted. The start of this picture book was telling us in the most poetic manner how beautiful the Ukrainian flag is. How magnificent. How proud the people of Ukraine are of it. Now, […]

Hiding in plain sight.

Alias Anna: A True Story of Outwitting the Nazis by Susan Hood and Greg Dawson

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Alias Anna: A True Story of Outwitting the Nazis is a romanticized look at how two Jewish girls lived when millions did not. Told in alternating voices, the Narrator, and “Anna” herself or, Zhanna Arshanskaya we learn how Zhanna and her sister Frina, were hiding in plain sight. They performed for the Nazi command, allies of the Nazi and eventually, for themselves. But no matter how much they feared being found out, betrayed by supposed friends, or their hatred of the Nazis, they always felt […]

Eastern Promises

The Blood-Red Dream by Michael Collins (Dennis Lynds)

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A reminder that lost classics are usually “lost” for a reason. When I read Act of Fear a few months ago, I was so excited to discover a new series. A character heavily inspired by Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer but set in New York City. I never expected these books to rise to the level of Macdonald’s work but I thought they would scratch the itch. They do not. Instead, I’m reminded of why I don’t often read a full series of books, especially mysteries. While Macdonald […]

Nowhere Story

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I truthfully don’t know how to write a review about a book like this. On the one hand, I feel compelled to defend my intellectual capacity to analyze literature, but on the other hand, I kind of just want to admit that I don’t get it. On the surface, there’s not that much to “get.” Nowhere Man is comprised of several stories at different times from different viewpoints that all describe the life of Josef Pronek, a Bosnian ex-pat who moves to Chicago in his third or […]

A Man and His Penguin

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This is the strange little story of Viktor, an aspiring novelist in post-Soviet Kiev.  He lives in a one-bedroom apartment with his pet penguin, Misha. He can’t get his stories published, but one day lands a job writing obituaries.  The fact that he’s writing obituaries for people who aren’t dead yet doesn’t bother him too much–it pays the bills, keeps his fridge stocked with frozen fish for Misha, and, besides, he’s good at his job.  But as you might expect, writing obituaries for the not-yet-dead in a planned […]



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