Book #143 of 2025: The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage that Made an American Icon by Laurie Gwen Shapiro These days, Amelia Earhart is probably best remembered for two things: her status as a pioneering female pilot, including her being the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean, …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
Book Review: This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation by Rabbi Alan Lew
Book #142 of 2025: This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation by Rabbi Alan Lew The Jewish High Holy Days are approaching, which means my library’s circulation figures for this self-help title are seeing their usual annual bump. This year I remembered to place my …
Book Review: Exterminate! Regenerate!: The Story of Doctor Who by John Higgs
Book #141 of 2025: Exterminate! Regenerate!: The Story of Doctor Who by John Higgs I’ve read — and, okay, written — quite a lot about Doctor Who, so please believe me when I say that this new history from author John Higgs is truly remarkable within that space. It’s an engaging account of how the …
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Movie Review: Doctor Who: The Five Doctors (1983)
Movie #10 of 2025: Doctor Who: The Five Doctors (1983) For the tenth anniversary of Doctor Who in 1973, the producers hit upon a great idea: since the show is about a time-traveler, they could devise a story where the previous incarnations of the main character turn up to help the current version, then played …
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Book Review: The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
Book #140 of 2025: The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson (Eternal Path Trilogy #1) A seriously strong fantasy debut. I thought while reading this novel that I might wind up giving it my top rating of five-out-of-five stars, and though it falls short of that in the end, I’ve still really enjoyed the piece and …
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Book Review: Disney Adults: Exploring (And Falling in Love With) a Magical Subculture by AJ Wolfe
Book #139 of 2025: Disney Adults: Exploring (And Falling in Love With) a Magical Subculture by AJ Wolfe An insider’s look at the phenomenon of Disney obsessives, and particularly those fixated on the company’s domestic theme parks in Florida and California. Like many of the people whom author AJ Wolfe has spotlighted or interviewed for …
Book Review: Star Wars: Sanctuary: A Bad Batch Novel by Lamar Giles
Book #138 of 2025: Star Wars: Sanctuary: A Bad Batch Novel by Lamar Giles The animated Star Wars series The Bad Batch ended in 2024 after a respectable run of 47 episodes, so I’m a little confused about this new title that just came out, more than a year later. It does not appear to …
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TV Review: Galavant, season 2
TV #45 of 2025: Galavant, season 2 A welcome improvement over its debut. As I’d hoped, the writers finally seem to have locked into which elements of this fantasy musical-comedy sitcom work well and which ones don’t, and the result is an overall stronger season. It’s too bad the series wasn’t renewed for a third …
Book Review: Firestorm by John Peel
Book #137 of 2025: Firestorm by John Peel (2099 #6) After a couple weaker entries that passed without much action, the final volume of this middle-grade sci-fi series thankfully delivers with a bang. Everyone is scrambling to defeat the villain Devon’s terrorist threat to end all life on Earth (via a crashing ship full of …
Book Review: Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth by Simon R. Green
Book #136 of 2025: Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth by Simon R. Green (Nightside #6) A satisfying enough conclusion to the initial arc of this early 2000s urban fantasy series. The protagonist’s mother has been built up as the big bad of the Nightside over all the previous volumes, and here her threat is finally …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 