Movie #6 of 2023: Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (2023) After ten smash albums over the past seventeen years — roughly half her life to date — the country-turned-pop artist Taylor Swift has amassed a body of work well worthy of retrospective. That’s the motivation behind her recent Eras tour, and so too this concert …
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Book #111 of 2023: A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie (Miss Marple #10) I always find it somewhat absurd when one of author Agatha Christie’s detective characters simply happens to stumble over a murder, but this premise has to be in the running for among her most ludicrous. Whilst on vacation, Miss Marple talks to …
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Book #110 of 2023: Holly by Stephen King This is the sixth Stephen King story to feature private investigator Holly Gibney, following the Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes; Finders Keepers; End of Watch), the novel The Outsider, and the novella If It Bleeds. The previous three entries all found that protagonist and her friends facing …
Book #109 of 2023: The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson [Disclaimer: I am Facebook friends with this author.] This is the fourth and final ‘Secret Project’ release from author Brandon Sanderson, representing the novels he wrote in his spare time during the early COVID-19 pandemic and later dramatically unveiled via a record-setting Kickstarter for their …
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TV #50 of 2023: Ahsoka, season 1 This latest Star Wars property is solidly mid-tier for the franchise. I don’t want to downplay that: it’s still really cool that we’re getting big-budget live-action Star Wars shows at all, and this one is better than, say, the latest season of The Mandalorian in terms of providing …
Book #108 of 2023: Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel A short but scathing call-out of author David Baddiel’s fellow progressive-leaning individuals for too often ignoring the problem of antisemitism: either not noticing it at all or downplaying its impact and the importance of challenging it compared to other bigotries. If you are a non-Jewish …
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Book #107 of 2023: Whalefall by Daniel Kraus I didn’t know that I particularly needed a YA version of “The Mariner’s Revenge Song,” but this novel was a delightful (if often viscerally unpleasant) read. Its genre flutters between wilderness survival and straight-up horror, telling the story of a teenage boy who winds up swallowed by …
Book #106 of 2023: Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #4) At its best, this fantasy series offers powerful meditations on stories: why we share and find meaning in them, how they don’t necessarily match an objective historical record even when purporting to, the reasons they might shift over time …
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Book #105 of 2023: Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid A feel-good comeback story from the master of other such recent historical fiction celebrity novels as Daisy Jones & The Six or The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (all of which apparently share a loose continuity). In this one, our heroine Carrie Soto …
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Book #104 of 2023: Secret Identity by Alex Segura [Disclaimer: I won a free paperback copy of this title from the publisher Flatiron Books on Goodreads, in exchange for an honest review.] For many readers, the natural comparison point for this 2022 novel will be The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer-winning …
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