Book #25 of 2021: Eternal Life by Dara Horn I love a good story about angsty immortals, but it’s possible I read this one too soon after last year’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which explores a similar thematic territory far more movingly. In this 2018 novel, the protagonist is a woman who doesn’t …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
Book Review: Rocannon’s World by Ursula K. Le Guin
Book #24 of 2021: Rocannon’s World by Ursula K. Le Guin (Hainish Cycle #1) First published in 1966, Ursula K. Le Guin’s debut novel already shows her promise, spinning a genre-bending tale that sets off her loose Hainish Cycle of related books and gifting future writers with the name and concept of the ansible, a …
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TV Review: Kim’s Convenience, season 4
TV #7 of 2021: Kim’s Convenience, season 4 There’s a little plot momentum this year when Jung finally gets together with his long-term love interest, but for the most part, this is the same steady program it’s been all along: reliably funny yet rarely all that exciting, and structurally still far too separated into its …
Book Review: Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland by Dave Barry
Book #23 of 2021: Best. State. Ever.: A Florida Man Defends His Homeland by Dave Barry Humorist Dave Barry seems more hit-or-miss for me the older we each get, and this 2016 title has some definite issues with Baby Boomer sexism, transphobic implications, lazy jokes about Native American place names, and so on. But the …
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Book Review: Maresi by Maria Turtschaninoff
Book #22 of 2021: Maresi by Maria Turtschaninoff (The Red Abbey Chronicles #1) Interesting fantasy worldbuilding, but the characters can seem a bit simplistic at times and the plot doesn’t really kick in until midway through, when a raiding ship attacks the island refuge where the heroine lives as an abbey novice. It gets pretty …
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Book Review: The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis
Book #21 of 2021: The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia #1) I always think that I like this prequel more than I actually do, because in my memory, only the strong parts stand out. The devious uncle, the rings that take you to the Wood Between the Worlds from which …
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Book Review: A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Book #20 of 2021: A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman This tale of a lonely old man in author Fredrik Backman’s native Sweden is first heartbreaking and then heartwarming, as he slowly begins to form unwanted connections with the neighborhood community around him. It’s a novel that dares us to love Ove despite all …
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Book Review: A Promised Land by Barack Obama
Book #19 of 2021: A Promised Land by Barack Obama This memoir is a solid but not spectacular inside look at Barack Obama’s political career, from his earliest run for Illinois State Senate through his ordering of the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound midway into his first presidential term. (That’s a fairly arbitrary cutoff …
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TV Review: Killing Eve, season 1
TV #6 of 2021: Killing Eve, season 1 I have a lot of open questions about this show, some of which might fall under the category of plot holes, but are perhaps more charitably labeled as simply ‘details the writers aren’t interested in.’ At a minimum, this first season seems to revel in ambiguity, throwing …
Book Review: Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire
Book #18 of 2021: Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children #6) I still like this series of novellas about children who temporarily stumble into various fantasy worlds and later yearn to return there, but the past few volumes have been a little underwhelming. I think the format tends to work best …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 