Book #168 of 2019: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell (Simon Snow #1) In Rainbow Rowell’s 2013 novel Fangirl, her protagonist writes an extensive fanfiction called “Carry On, Simon” about Simon Snow, a popular Harry Potter-esque fantasy series that did not, at that time, actually exist. Rowell later released this follow-up, which is decidedly not that …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
TV Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 4
TV #33 of 2019: Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 4 Another season of Star Trek that’s generally solid, but not exactly spectacular on an episode-by-episode basis. The sinister Starfleet xenophobia in “The Drumhead” definitely makes me sit up and pay attention, and there are a few other gems like “Future Imperfect” and “Clues” scattered …
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Book Review: This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Book #167 of 2019: This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone A quick novella about two women on opposite sides of a reality-spanning conflict, who use time-travel to counter one another’s moves (and counter-moves, and counter-counter-moves, and so on). Each field operative has more in common with her …
Book Review: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
Book #166 of 2019: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson This nonfiction book is partly about the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, and partly about the serial killer H. H. Holmes, who operated his infamous ‘murder castle’ nearby during that same time. Both …
Book Review: Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams
Book #165 of 2019: Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy #5) This final Hitchhiker’s book is, unfortunately, mostly toothless. It skates by on some borrowed goodwill from earlier in the series, but it also abandons numerous plots, concepts, and figures that really deserved a proper send-off of their own. And …
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Book Review: Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
Book #164 of 2019: Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson I reread this title for my book club meeting tonight, but I mostly stand by my previous review from 2017: “A sobering and deeply moving account from death row lawyer Bryan Stevenson on the injustices that pervade our justice system, …
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Book Review: Golden Child by Claire Adam
Book #163 of 2019: Golden Child by Claire Adam I like this novel’s #ownvoices setting of rural Trinidad in the 1980s, but am fairly unmoved by the plot of a father whose least-favorite son has gone missing. It’s a short book already, and this character’s central conflict point is both relegated to the very end …
Book Review: Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
Book #162 of 2019: Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane Overall a sharp, character-driven novel exploring the ties between two Irish-American families living next-door to each other in suburban New York. Author Mary Beth Keane excels at depicting the long shadows that childhood trauma can cast, and the difficulty of not repeating the patterns …
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Book Review: The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
Book #161 of 2019: The Dog Stars by Peter Heller I didn’t have much patience for this generic post-apocalypse story about a widower living in rural isolation with his dog and his somehow-more-misanthropic neighbor. (That guy shoots anyone who tresspasses into their compound. Our narrator does too; he just feels bad about it.) The tone …
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Book Review: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Book #160 of 2019: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (Little Women #1) This 1868 novel is understandably old-fashioned, and the episodic early chapters can sometimes make it feel more like a short story collection than a single cohesive narrative. Yet its characters are so charming and well-realized that it’s simply a joy to follow …
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The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 