Book #92 of 2021: Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick A fascinating personal glimpse into life under the repressive regime of North Korea, drawing on deep interviews with escaped citizens as well as journalist Barbara Demick’s general experience in the region. This 2009 book — focusing mainly on the two …
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Book #91 of 2021: The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert (The Hazel Wood #1) Quite a lot in this YA portal fantasy doesn’t work for me, but I think it mostly comes down to the characters. Alice, our protagonist — yes, this is largely a riff on Alice in Wonderland — is just so angry …
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Taking a quick pause from my usual posting schedule — I’ve hit an average of one new book review per day for the first 90 days of this year! — to remind folks that I have a Patreon set up for anyone who’d like to support my reviews on a recurring monthly basis. There are …
Book #90 of 2021: True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee by Abraham Riesman Drawing on years of archive research and interviews with Stan Lee’s closest associates, this new biography is probably the definitive account of the Marvel Comics editor-turned-Hollywood cameo superstar. It also complicates if not contradicts a lot of our established …
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Book #89 of 2021: The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn #3) This closing volume to the original Mistborn trilogy is another outstanding adventure by the standards of the epic fantasy genre at large, but I think it’s perhaps just a minor step down from the first two books. The malevolent force called Ruin …
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Book #88 of 2021: The Electric Kingdom by David Arnold At some point, I’m going to have to learn to ignore promotional materials that compare the latest post-apocalyptic saga to Station Eleven. Generally, as in this case, that sort of comparison is rather overselling the wonder and humanity on display. The Electric Kingdom is not …
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TV #31 of 2021: Community, season 6 The mantra for Community fans clamoring for renewal was always, “Six seasons and a movie!” after a hopeful throwaway Abed line about the ultimately short-lived series The Cape. The sitcom too fell shy of that goal — technically I suppose a revival film someday wouldn’t be so surprising, …
Book #87 of 2021: Parker Pyne Investigates by Agatha Christie Honestly, a better name for this 1934 collection might be “Parker Pyne Instigates.” In less than half of these stories does that fellow do any real investigative work; the majority of the time he instead constructs elaborate confidence schemes to make his patrons feel happy …
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Book #86 of 2021: Star Wars: Ahsoka by E. K. Johnston This Star Wars novel follows fan-favorite character Ahsoka Tano on her first real solo adventure, helping to fill in the gap between her appearances on the animated shows The Clone Wars and Rebels. (And because this franchise’s release schedule is all out of chronological …
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Book #85 of 2021: The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly It’s March 2021, and I’ve read quite a few titles over the past year looking at the global history of pandemics, the science behind their causes, and the strategies that led …
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