opium – Cannonball Read 17

Plant Mind Control

This is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan

July 13, 2023 by CoffeeShopReader Leave a Comment

Bingo 1: Edibles I think the only other thing I’ve read of Michael Pollan’s was Food Rules, which was as it sounds, a general rules list with brief discussion per rule. They were pretty common sense, and I generally agreed with them. I know he’s actually a bit more controversial than that, but it’s only now I know why. I’ve had This is Your Mind on Plants on my TBR shelf for a while. Now I’ve read it. While the subject isn’t edibles in the […]

If the “them apples” guy wrote a book, this would be it.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey

January 11, 2023 by Halbs 3 Comments

What do Usher and St. Augustine have in common? I enjoyed their Confessions more than Thomas De Quincey’s. (Also, both Usher and Augustine were both great dancers in their prime.) There have probably been books that were more disappointing to me that Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, but I can’t think of any right now. Mr. De Quincey’s Confessions first made itself known to me through Nick Tosches’ The Last Opium Den. That book was less about opium and more about the search for something […]

A Few Things Get Lost in Translation from Podcast to Book

Sawbones: the Horrifying, Hilarious Road to Modern Medicine by Dr. Sydnee McElroy, Justin McElroy

January 3, 2021 by CoffeeShopReader Leave a Comment

So the question for this first review of 2021 was do I review the book I started (and finished) in 2021 first, or the one I started in 2020 and finished in 2021 first? I have decided to review Sawbones: The Book first, because I’m pretty sure I started 2020 with Will My Cate Eat My Eyeballs? (which I greatly enjoyed) and there are some strong similarities, both being medical in nature, as well as presented by an expert (one of the co-authors of Sawbones […]

in search of the celestial drug

December 5, 2015 by Halbs Leave a Comment

In my mind exists a temple; a museum of the works of art that helped shape my inner world. Some works are on loan and some are part of the permanent collection. The permanent works that name and sustain me are existentialist: Solomon’s Ecclesiastes, Aurelius’ Meditations, Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, Hendrix’ Axis: Bold as Love, Dylan’s electric Manchester performance, Rippel-Ronai’s Park at Night, the Bhagavad Gita. These are useful for determining how to live authentically and courageously in an unknowable universe. A less obvious […]

Gothic crime and Victorian intrigue

July 28, 2014 by Valyruh Leave a Comment

A Victorian novel in the form of an epistolary, this is the supposed journal of 17-year-old Richard Shenstone, who has just been sent home, or “rusticated,” from Cambridge because of misdeeds that are only slowly revealed in the course of the novel. Richard has recently learned that his father, once a respected deacon of the church, has died of a heart attack while under suspicion of embezzlement of church funds–and worse–and that his mother and older sister are living in dire circumstances in a delapidated […]

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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