Book #21 of 2017: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North I’m a big fan of time loop stories, but even in the context of that particular genre, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is remarkable. (I’d personally put it second only to Ken Grimwood’s novel Replay, which is one of …
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Book #20 of 2017: The Awakened Mage by Karen Miller (Kingmaker, Kingbreaker #2) A definite improvement over the first book, although at the cost of a few narrative threads and characters that are unceremoniously dropped in the transition. And I still don’t understand how Asher earns the love and devotion of so many other characters …
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Book #19 of 2017: The Victim by Saul Bellow When an antisemitic acquaintance accuses Asa Leventhal of ruining his life, the New York City Jew brushes off the accusation to focus on a recent family tragedy. But the gentiles in his life are quick to take his accuser’s side, to the point where Leventhal begins …
Book #18 of 2017: The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher The Princess Diarist is Carrie Fisher’s account of her time filming the first Star Wars movie, along with some reflections on what the franchise’s fame has meant for her over the years. It’s a deeply personal memoir, constantly foregrounding the fact that the actress was …
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The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (The Wheel of Time #1) For the most part this first book in Robert Jordan’s massive Wheel of Time saga feels like a paint-by-numbers retelling of the Star Wars / Lord of the Rings monomyth. There’s some occasional flashes of originality, but it’s mostly just the same …
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Book #16 of 2017: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy As many others have noted, the title Anna Karenina is somewhat misleading, as the novel devotes more space to the story of Anna’s brother-in-law and author stand-in Konstantin Levin than it does to Anna herself. (“Brother-in-law” is a simplification, and suggests a closeness between Anna and …
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Book #15 of 2017: The Painter of Battles by Arturo Pérez-Reverte This was kind of a strange book, about a former war photographer who gets tracked down in retirement by a soldier he once photographed who now blames the man for ruining his life and says he’s come to kill him. The two men proceed …
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Book #14 of 2017: Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake (Three Dark Crowns #1) I loved the atmosphere in this book, which is set on a secluded magical island slowly gearing up for its sacrificial rites – a tradition that no one really questions, which is delightfully eerie in a Shirley Jackson kind of way. …
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Movie #1 of 2017: Howard the Duck (1986) Okay, so there’s no denying that this is a bad movie, but it’s definitely one that’s so bad it’s good (especially when watched with a group of friends making jokes throughout about possible connections to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, like how the technology that brings Howard to …
Book #13 of 2017: A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett The first third of this book is a bit of a bore, as the heroine’s only real character trait is that she is nicer and smarter and with a better relationship to her father than all the other girls at her boarding school. And …
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