octothorp – Page 12 – Cannonball Read 17

They’ve got the beat (CBR12BINGO: Music)

The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory by John Seabrook

July 6, 2020 by octothorp Leave a Comment

I think my favorite random fact about music as an industry is that “I Write the Songs,” Barry Manilow’s signature song, was written by someone else. (Well, that and the fact that Christine McVie told her ex-husband that “You Make Lovin Fun – a song where the next line after the titular one is “and I don’t have to tell you that you’re the only one” was about their dog instead of her new boyfriend on a song he had to play on because he […]

Catasterous disastrophe

The Disasters by M. K. England

June 30, 2020 by octothorp Leave a Comment

The problem with stories about losers is that they’re almost never about losers. They’re about winners in loser’s clothing. We don’t love stories about underdogs so much as we love stories where the discrepancy between the start and the finish is as large as possible. We love underdogs when they WIN. I mean, with a book where 3/5ths of our characters are LGBTQ, I certainly don’t WANT anything truly traumatic to happen to them (real life is bad enough, thanks), and England does a fantastic […]

Four plants in search of a human

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

June 30, 2020 by octothorp Leave a Comment

I have the sneaking suspicion that this started out as four books before Pollan decided there wasn’t enough material to sustain each (or, in the case of the Dutch tulip mania, too little undiscovered ground to cover) and smushed them all together into one okay book by deciding the unifying theme with each plant he wanted to write about was that they all evolved to be appreciated by humans for different reasons. Well, yeah. That’s more or less what evolution is – what is of […]

A so-so reckoning

A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny

June 19, 2020 by octothorp 2 Comments

I think I picked up the wrong book. I’ve been recommended Louise Penny as being in the Tana French vein (write faster, French!), and I just sort of assumed that like the Dublin Murder Squad books that you could pick any one up and jump in. This wasn’t a bad book, but it felt a little like starting a TV show in the seventh season. Maybe I’m wrong, but I got the impression that I was supposed to know all of the characters and histories […]

It’s everywhere when you know where to look

Waking Up Blind by Tom Harbin

June 19, 2020 by octothorp Leave a Comment

Happy Juneteenth! Ready to be ENRAGED? One of the docs I work for (I’m in a pediatric ophthalmology clinic) loaned me this book after I saw it on her desk and expressed interest, thinking it might be an Oliver Sacks-type book about adapting to sightlessness, but the doctor and the resident let me know it was about a doctor who allowed multiple patients to go blind through negligence and poor care in the mid 1980s. And that the doctor in question has an honorary position […]

I’d take back all the words that had hurt you, and you’d stay…

Restart by Gordon Korman

May 28, 2020 by octothorp 1 Comment

Thank you to the Redditor I’ve already forgotten for turning me onto Gordon Korman books; I hadn’t heard of him before someone posted about their crush’s shared love of his stuff. For whatever reason (price, it was price. I can’t resist something if it’s inexpensive enough) I was curious enough to buy this to see what the fuss was about, and was pleasantly surprised by how charming his writing is. So often young adult condescends to its readers, but Korman writes well realized characters with […]

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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