Book #96 of 2026: The Chosen by Chaim Potok First published in 1967 and set in the waning days and aftermath of World War II, this bestseller presents readers with a nuanced impression of American Judaism and some of its internal divisions. Author Chaim Potok at times veers too far in that direction and reduces …
Author Archives: Joe Kessler
Book Review: Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson
Book #95 of 2026: Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson If S. A. Cosby ever turned his hand to writing Stephen King-style supernatural horror, the result might be something like this: a 70s revenge noir in which a Vietnam veteran bartender and his teenage niece embark on a cross-country journey to track down the vampire who …
Movie Review: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)
Movie #29 of 2026: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) It should be no surprise that a movie built around the stoner comic relief from Kevin Smith’s View Askewniverse turns out to be so slapsticky and crude, and if you can manage to get on that level, there are genuine laughs to be found …
Continue reading “Movie Review: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)”
Book Review: As Many Souls as Stars by Natasha Siegel
Book #94 of 2026: As Many Souls as Stars by Natasha Siegel This title offers an exquisite toxic lesbian horror-fantasy romance that is easily my top new read of 2026 so far. It’s everything that I wanted and didn’t quite get from last year’s Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, whose angsty vampires never …
Continue reading “Book Review: As Many Souls as Stars by Natasha Siegel”
Book Review: Jupiter by Ben Bova
Book #93 of 2026: Jupiter by Ben Bova I’m not convinced that this story about an established research station orbiting Jupiter really is the next chronologically in Ben Bova’s Grand Tour sequence after The Precipice, in which humanity was first starting to mine the asteroid belt for resources, but that’s what the late author’s website …
Book Review: Doctor Who: Shirley Jackson and the Chaos Box by Kalynn Bayron
Book #92 of 2026: Doctor Who: Shirley Jackson and the Chaos Box by Kalynn Bayron (Icons #3) Pretty good as a Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby story, neatly slipping into the dynamic they shared together over their one season on TV. I can’t help feeling like the title figure falls through the cracks a bit, though, …
Continue reading “Book Review: Doctor Who: Shirley Jackson and the Chaos Box by Kalynn Bayron”
Book Review: Queen of Sorcery by David Eddings
Book #91 of 2026: Queen of Sorcery by David Eddings (The Belgariad #2) More interesting and distinctive than the first volume in this series, but not to the degree I feel obligated to bump my rating up at all. I’m starting to understand why people say the authors’ later standalone novel The Redemption of Althalus …
Continue reading “Book Review: Queen of Sorcery by David Eddings”
TV Review: Classic Doctor Who, season 26
TV #28 of 2026: Classic Doctor Who, season 26 By certain metrics, what we now call the “Classic” iteration of Doctor Who had already gone on too long when it was eventually cancelled in 1989. Twenty-six seasons is far more than most TV shows get to have, and the program had passed through some dire …
Book Review: Gregor and the Marks of Secret by Suzanne Collins
Book #90 of 2026: Gregor and the Marks of Secret by Suzanne Collins (The Underland Chronicles #4) This penultimate volume is easily the strongest of its series since the debut, largely for dispensing with the tired structure of yet another ancient prophecy sending our returning tween hero on yet another quest. (Granted, those elements both …
Continue reading “Book Review: Gregor and the Marks of Secret by Suzanne Collins”
Movie Review: Dogma (1999)
Movie #28 of 2026: Dogma (1999) This was the first movie that I ever saw in Kevin Smith’s View Askewniverse series, and together with the novel Good Omens, it represented a fairly seminal text for an agnostic humanist kid from a Jewish-Unitarian household in my heavily Christian town — a way of grappling with the …
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 