Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About octothorp

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I buy books faster than I can read them. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: octothorp's Quick Questions interview.)

octothorp's Reviews:

Didn’t land the dismount (CBR12Bingo 2: Pandemic)

The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus

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No one remakes bad movies. We get a hundred Jurassic World movies like the first one wasn’t flipping perfect, but the movies with promising premises that fail in the execution remain in the dustbin of history. I want someone to remake this book. The premise is strong and intriguing – there’s a virus of some kind that renders speech impossible to listen to. At first it’s just the voices of children that become toxic to adults, but it progresses and soon any speech renders the […]

I’m waiting for it; that green light, I want it (CBR12Bingo2: The Roaring Twenties)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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I don’t think that there is a single take on The Great Gatsby that hasn’t been done, overdone, flipped and reversed. But there’s a reason that so many people have written about this damn book – it’s a marvel of precision. There are no words wasted. This is particularly awe inspiring for me, who has never met a five word sentence I couldn’t torture into twenty. In my desperate attempt to say something fresh about a book I’ve read a hundred and eleventy twelve times, I […]

Any Atwood is a good Gateway to Atwood (CBR12Bingo 2: Gateway)

The Tent by Margaret Atwood

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My absolute far and away favorite Margaret Atwood book is The Blind Assassin, but that’s like the dessert at the end of an excellent meal. You have to work up to it. Handmaid’s Tale is another solid choice, and my own introduction to Margaret Atwood’s awesomenaucity, but I’ve already reviewed it twice for CBR (I think – definitely once).  I love so many of her novels, but for different reasons. So I’m going with The Tent, because the best way to experience Atwood is by […]

I’m waiting for the Baudelaires to meet the One Trick Pony (CBR12Bingo 2: No Money)

The Miserable Mill by Lemony Snicket

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Ya’ll, I’m kind of glad this was my “No Money” square because I think I’d be irritated if I spent actual money on this book. Might be my second least favorite of the series, but I found a pile of these at Goodwill for a dollar, and then used loyalty points to get them for free. I had to buy #1 because there were 2-6 present, so of course I’d pay for the one I liked the least. We’re dealing with a pretty predictable pattern […]

Beautiful music together (CBR12Bingo 2: Music)

Something Wonderful by Todd S Purdum

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When Rodgers and Hammerstein collaborated with Irving Berlin, Berlin was worried about credit and quite possibly the reputation of the other two, fond of quoting his couplet “There goes time with your last year’s prize/ Whittling it down to its proper size.” Which, of course, seems ridiculous given that Berlin, Rodgers, and Hammerstein are still titans half a century after their heyday, but it’s nice to see that even the mighty have their anxieties. The book follows Rodgers from his early days writing music with […]

How to do it (better than you) (CBR12Bingo2: how to)

Cooking by Michael Pollan

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Man, this is a good contender for the color square too because boy howdy can Michael Pollan’s writing turn to purple prose at times. I love reading about food, much to my coworker’s confusion, and particularly books like this, that view cooking as a whole rather than a collection of recipes. I know that reading about food is like dancing about architecture, to borrow from Frank Zappa, but when Pollan waxes poetic at times I wanna roll my eyes. It doesn’t help that Pollan can […]



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