Book #150 of 2019: The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold This short novel starts out feeling like it will be a fun sci-fi romp, but it soon turns mind-bending and profoundly reflective in equal measure. Bequeathed a device that can travel back and forth along the timestream, our hero encounters many alternate versions …
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Book #149 of 2019: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown A somewhat dense history book, detailing the (mis)treatment of various Native American groups by the United States in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Writing in 1970, white historian Dee Brown gathers from many …
TV #31 of 2019: Veronica Mars, season 1 What an incredibly satisfying and well-crafted season of television. The high school noir tone is pitch-perfect, the title figure is layered far beyond her initial feisty appeal, and subtle clues to the ultimate answer of who killed the teenage sleuth’s best friend are threaded brilliantly throughout the …
Book #148 of 2019: The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss (The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club #1) I think I admire the ambition of this Victorian horror pastiche, which is like a feminist next generation to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, more than I care for the finished product. It’s …
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Book #147 of 2019: Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch I’ve known and followed Gretchen McCulloch since 2012, when we connected as fellow grad students drawn to the messy question of how to apply the systematic approaches from our linguistics classes to the strange new frontier of informal writing that …
Book #146 of 2019: Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman One part memoir of an American journalist’s life abroad in Paris, one part ethnography of French attitudes and approaches towards childraising. Mostly, the latter boils down to firmer rules, not feeling pressure to meet particular milestones, …
Book #145 of 2019: I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution by Emily Nussbaum In this 2019 collection of essays, most previously published elsewhere, culture critic Emily Nussbaum explores many facets of television as a medium and how it has grown as an avenue for artistic expression over the past few …
Book #144 of 2019: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy #4) This novel is packed with the usual dry witticisms and absurdist observations of author Douglas Adams, but it carries a very different tenor to the rest of this comic sci-fi series. The new …
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Book #143 of 2019: Pennyroyal Academy by M. A. Larson (Pennyroyal Academy #1) This middle-grade fantasy novel keeps its heroine a cipher for far too long, and when readers finally learn her peculiar backstory, it doesn’t really track with what we’ve seen or elucidate her driving goals. (Why does she want to be a warrior …
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Book #142 of 2019: The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic by Mike Duncan A deep dive into a fairly short span of Roman history, from the defeat of the enemy city-states Corinth and Carthage in 146 BCE to the death of the general Sulla in 78 BCE. …
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